*** To: ALL FIRST Teams *** Scouting Msg from SOAP/WASH ***

[archiver]

Posted by soap108 at 2/12/2001 10:34 PM EST


Engineer on team #108, SigmaC@T, from Dillard & Taravella HS and Motorola.



To: All FIRST Teams (Please share with all team members, especially your "strategy" team.)
Re: “Scouting is dirty work... W.A.S.H. with S.O.A.P.”


FIRST is huge. You know that. How can one team possibly keep an accurate track of nearly 500 teams? The answer is no one team can successfully.

In the spirit of 'Gracious Professionalism' and 'Sharing FIRST', Team 108 displayed and shared its scouting strategy database known as S.O.A.P. (SigmaC@T Opponent Analysis Program) at last year's Motorola Midwest Regional and Nationals at Epcot. This setup, with over 20 GB! of data, was used by many teams (over 50%), especially during the competition at Nationals, to perform team capability and strategic analysis of both opponents and alliance members. Many provided positive feedback on how this saved them much time and energy.

The 2001 'co-opertition' has eliminated "opponents." It is hard to break old habit (for us veterans) about not sharing our robot abilities, but in order to get some really high scores we ALL must work together...if nothing else it shows good sportsmanship. It is necessary to collect a very large amount of data, and we would like to get a head start on the data collection process. Let's call this "Pre-scouting." Yes, it is still early and you have not finished your robot. But, do you know for a certainty that you can cross the bridge? pick up a small ball? Exactly.

The S.O.A.P. web team has setup a site at http://www.soap108.com for teams to post their robot's profile. Look for a link called Register or Registration. Upon registration you will be sent a confirmation email with a password. The password is necessary so that one team does not overwrite another team's inputs. Only 1 team member may register their team! So please make sure this effort is coordinated on your end. The data will be entered via a series of choice boxes and will then be dumped into our main database for viewing by ALL teams who have participated.

If your data changes for whatever reason, you can go back and update as often as needed. There will be a date stamp on your last entry. If everyone participates then this can be, going forward, a very useful tool for ALL teams. Upon arrival at the competition S.O.A.P. & W.A.T.E.R., an effort of at least teams 108, 111, and 45, will spend the first day (practice rounds) in a verification effort to ensure the accuracy of the data present in the "pre-scouting" database.

Multiple teams have even expressed a desire to cooperate with us in making this happen at more events. For example, Team 111 (www.wildstang.com) is joining the data collection effort, calling themselves W.A.S.H. (WildStang Application for Scouting with Handhelds). Any team interested in using W.A.S.H. (especially at EPCOT) to add their data to S.O.A.P. should visit http://www.wildstang.com or send a *brief* email to Mike.Soukup@motorola.com. Likewise, if your team is willing to help record video for S.O.A.P. (especially at events other than KSC, WMI, IL, and EPCOT), send a *brief* email stating what you can do to EKA016@email.mot.com. We'll reply promptly.

S.O.A.P. provides additional services than just the on-line database. Look for a "Services" link on the above website. Here is a brief list of other services: Seeding calculations, Statistics, Real time match scores (Html and via Paging); Video streaming over net; Instant video playback (local to event); Complete Elimination round coverage.

We hope ALL of you get to experience the same benefits that so many have before! S.O.A.P. - Search Out Alliance Possibilities!


Best Regards, ;~)

The S.O.A.P. Team
http://www.soap108.com
Team 108 - SigmaC@T
Motorola & Dillard HS & Taravella HS
Plantation, FL

The W.A.S.H. Team
http://www.wildstang.com
Team 111 - WildStang
Motorola & Rolling Meadows HS & Wheeling HS
Arlington Heights, IL