Best Ways To Scout

[Molten]

Originally Posted by Jared341

My tips:
2. Asking teams about their robot is a quick way to get the basics, but it also leads to a lot of misinformation. Nobody is going to look you in the eye and say that "we suck" (nor should they!). Limit your questions to basics like, what kind of drive? How experienced are your drivers? How do you load and score? Autonomous modes? Asking them to rate their abilities or give you figures like "how many balls do you score in a match" is not terribly likely to give you useful information. Any misinformation here is just as likely to be purposeful as not; scouting in the pits at a week 1 regional you will find many teams who honestly don't know how their machine is going to work.

I really got to disagree with the message sent by this one. If the scout is good, they can get everything they need to know from the people directly. There is no need for the stands.

To be a good scout: Take everything told to you with a grain of salt. Sometimes there is misinformation. However, it is often easy to tell when someone is lying about their bot. Also, ask the right people. Sometimes the best source for information is the team captain. Other times it is the freshmen that is sitting off to the side. A team captain is going to know everything good that is happening with their team. A freshmen might just joke about how their robot went crazy in autonomous. Also, I find that you get the best answers when you are going to play a match with a team. They want their alliance partners to know of their short-comings. Namely because you can compensate. And at a later time, when they are your opponent, you can use this information.

And yes, I have seen teams give away their weaknesses upfront.(not always intentionally) Sometimes, they say this is why our robot is awesome. And then you know, this is what I need to be careful about.

A note: I focus on scouting for actual matches. If you happen to make it to the top ranks, you can always pick an elite team first round and let them use their vast resources to pick the third partner. Like said above, the third pick is usually the one that matters most.

Apology to any offended freshmen. Not trying to say anything by using the term. Just that it is a stereotype that could be readily used. I'm sure that as often as not, the kid goofing off that doesn't know what's happening is an upperclassmen.