NDS Overdrive Scouting System

[Andy L]

Originally Posted by sebas2mil

The one thing I have experienced in the past with pit scouting is the ability for the teams to stretch the truth a bit about their robot's capabilities


Sebas

well they can exaggerate sometimes but I don't think anyone ever allout lies about something. Even with a few liars pit scouting isn't useless

[sebas2mil]

Originally Posted by Andy L

well they can exaggerate sometimes but I don't think anyone ever allout lies about something. Even with a few liars pit scouting isn't useless

well I didn't say lie

but that is one reason why I like individual robot match scouting because it gives an accurate statistic of their robot's abilities

although pit scouting is good to find out the speed of a robot in ft/s and also capabilities to be able to compare later

[Andy L]

any update on this?

[TheOtherGuy]

Heh, sorry, I just noticed this thread had some more posts...

Update: I guess, looking back at the last post in this thread I made, I've come along a bit. The hybrid mode and teleop mode are all wired up and done with. To get a working version I need to add the comments, the save, and then make the Excel spreadsheet. Unfortunately, for the last 2 weeks I've been busy with the team website/english project/programming/building/etc. So I haven't had any time work on it recently... Don't worry though, I'll have it finished by the end of build season! (in fact, maybe I can find some time today to work on it...)

[d235j]

Can you make this software scalable so we can use it with only 1 or 2 DS's ? Not all teams have access to several cards and DS's.

[TheOtherGuy]

Well... the idea with this is that every DS goes to 1 robot on the field... it will work with however many DS's you have, but then you need to remember the numbers and stuff for every robot.

Also, a slight update. I am now 80% done! And by 80% I mean the DS end of the scouting software is now done. The rest of it is an excel macro that may take several days to figure out (hopefully not... but we'll see) that sorts the data and actually makes it useful.

Check attachment for screen shots of the program. Questions & comments appreciated.

[Andy L]

very nice, any plan for pit scouting

[TheOtherGuy]

It's a possibility... Unfortunately, I got tied up with other things and didn't get much time to work on this. However, in the 1 week between ship date and the first regional, I may be able to make a simple pit scouting program that you can use to check off different aspects of the robots. That all depends on if I can regain all the sleep I've lost on time

Another slight update: I'm kinda sorta remembering how to make the macro in Excel, so it shouldn't be but another day or two before the whole project is finished.

[Sam N.]

This would be awesome if you could get it to work. Maybe next year it can be some sort of co-team effort?

Sam

[TheOtherGuy]

Yea... Unfortunately I didn't get enough time this year to make it easily available to teams. I have the scouting software and will post is pretty soon, but I doubt anyone but our team will use it this year.

That being said, hopefully next year several teams can benefit from this system! I'll have all year to mess with it and make enhancements, so don't think for a second that it's dead

[Sam N.]

I'm really interested in this now. Personally, I own a DS and would like to put it to good use.

I downloaded an emulator and took a look at the 07 program and the 08 program you have so far.

It looks really good but here's my dilemma: My team has already made a scouting sheet. We document the match-by-match performance of each robot very well. When it comes to alliance selection though, its difficult for us to slog through the mountain of papers and messy handwriting right before its time to select our teammates.

If we had one DS on our team, our head scout could select maybe 20 of the top robots we're looking at and summarize their performance, strategy, and general information. The information would be transferred from the paper, to the DS. Information could be quickly scrolled through by our coach who is picking alliances on the field.

Ultimately, my point is this: Match-by-match robot documentation on the DS requires six of them. I wish the DS was used more as a tool to streamline summary information about top robots. Maybe something like this:

TEAM#: 1351 (dial)
NAME: (dial) (color chooser to highlight?) Mitty Robotics

Grade: A / B / C / D / F

Seed: (dial)
Wins/Losses: (dial)
Average Points: (dial)

Hybrid Strategy (circle all that apply): Rabbit / De-Cap / Herder / Hurdler
Tele-Op Strategy (circle all that apply): Rabbit / De-Cap / Herder / Hurdler

Place on Overpass? Y / N

Hurdle Mechanism: (keyboard input)
Herder Mechanism: (keyboard input)

This is just an idea. I'm not a programmer so I wouldn't have the best ideas on how one would go about doing this. I might run this by one of our guys to see what they think (and to see if they can do it in two weeks)

I will, however, also introduce your program to my team when it's finished to see if we can do something similar for next year.

thanks for your work
Sam

[TheOtherGuy]

Hmm.. Interesting! I've heard from several people that making a program that lists the best robots would be useful. I'm not too deep into programming with C++, but if I work at it, I may be able to make a program like this.

I was thinking along the lines of a program where you insert the data in a formatted way into a text file which you place on the root of the SD card. When you open the program, you can sort the data by team # and select certain teams that you could then view the data of. It would also be nice to be able to sort the teams depending on certain criteria, such as best hurdler, best lap runner, etc. Only thing is, this can already be done in Excel.

So it would be nice if this thread was put to use and people explained how they would use the DS and what benefits they would get from using it. I've heard of pit scouting, alliance selection, etc., and it would be nice if people expanded on their suggestions. I'm also trying to think of a way to scout several robots at once, reducing the number of DSs required for scouting (because I know some teams don't happen to have 6 DSs lying around!), and if anyone has an idea on how to do this, it would be greatly appreciated!

If there's anything you can do to help, that would be great! I was planning on making an API so teams could simply create their own programs. This API would have screen and data handling capabilities, including (hopefully) text input, buttons, checkboxes, etc. You would simply include a library and work from there.

So, we'll see where this goes. I'm sure by next year we can have something that is flexible and modular and suits many teams' needs!