Best Ways To Scout

[katd30]

I am on a 2nd year team. Last year we tried to have a scouting system but it utterly failed. Too many sheets of paper, not enough students, no one wanted to be distracted from a match... etc.

So, this year I was hoping to get some help from other teams who have been more successful in scouting. Only a few students will be there on the first day of competition due to school field trip approval things. Because of this only I, and maybe one or two other teammates, will be able to scout so I need an effective, low personnel method.

[Fred Sayre]

Well, good luck to you and your team!

Scouting is very hard to do thoroughly (and quantitatively) without a good team of 6+ people. We plan on having 1 person on each robot keeping track of actions on the field, with 1 additional person taking notes on human players. This is done on paper sheets that get turned into someone entering the data into a database for analysis and informing our field team of upcoming matches and also for ranking if we make it into the top 8. Scouts get tired and need breaks of course, and usually we have to throw out the scouting data for matches that we play in (scouts are very distracted watching our machine!).

What I have done in years where we don't have a full team of scouts is cutting the process down to keep track of only teams you are playing with or against at that event. This usually means 0-3 robots per match which is much more manageable. If you are looking for alliance partners during eliminations, this is a bit harder and we would usually just have 1 person taking notes and ranking teams.

Another thought is to seek out another team at your event doing full scouting. Many teams (including ours) are more than willing to share their quantitative data with you. You can even offer to help sit in and scout with them.

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by katd30

I am on a 2nd year team. Last year we tried to have a scouting system but it utterly failed. Too many sheets of paper, not enough students, no one wanted to be distracted from a match... etc.

So, this year I was hoping to get some help from other teams who have been more successful in scouting. Only a few students will be there on the first day of competition due to school field trip approval things. Because of this only I, and maybe one or two other teammates, will be able to scout so I need an effective, low personnel method.

In this thread you'll find an excellent scouting excel workbook. It should help you.

[katd30]

Wow. Thank you so much! Thanks for the tip on asking other teams and the excel workbook will help so much. I hate trying to work with excel, probably cause I'm a perfectionist and I can never get the columns to the right size.

[Fred Sayre]

Do you use access? I have an access db and an excel sheet for print outs if you want them.

[katd30]

Nope. I have actually never really even heard of access before... Is it like excel?

[Molten]

I have my own approach to scouting. Time in the stands seems to me to be a bit wasteful if you have limited resources. Most of the time, I don't even get to watch a match other then the one's my team is in.(sometimes not even those). I suggest you going to the teams. Individually ask them questions. How does that work? What is your overall accuracy? They will tell you. If their accuracy isn't great, they will tell you that but they will say 'but we mainly play defense' or something along those lines. Body language tells as much as words when it comes to scouting. If the person doesn't seem confident, maybe they don't really have the best bot.

Just remember, time in the stands can tell you a lot. But if you get the same information from people, then you might learn more and will also gain recognition with that individual team for possible alliances in the future. Very rarely will a team pick a team for alliance that they have never spoken to. Sometimes, the worse team is picked simply because they are friends with the other team and didn't know who else to pick.(happens more in second draft).

If you have any other questions, feel free to PM me.

[GGCO]

My team hasn't had a good scouting system in a while, but this year it was alright. What we did at the Traverse City district event was divide the team into 3 groups, each led by a veteran member. There were 6 people to a group. One group would scout for an hour, the other would have pit duty, and the other would have free time. It worked pretty well. Problem was with the team leaders (myself included) didn't get the data to the drivers. That is going to change at our next event, GVSU.

[Kersten]

I see your team is going to VCU so if you want i would be glad to share my scouting notes with you

[Jared Russell]

My tips:

1. Unless you have a small army of scouts (our team does, but most do not), trying to count the balls scored by and on each robot individually is going to take way, way too much time and effort. There is no substitute for watching matches, but don't get too caught up in the ball-by-ball details.

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.

2. Oftentimes it is the third partner who will determine the success or failure of your alliance in the elimination rounds. Most events will have a handful of elite machines and then a logjam of decent to good machines. You will quickly discover who can score in droves, but it is important to avoid the natural tendency to focus your attention solely on these teams. Sorting through the middle of the pack is the most difficult - and oftentimes most important - job a scout will have. Case in point: our selection of 2543 at San Diego this year, and our selection of 84 at Philly the past two years. All three picks led to regional wins as our third partner effectively shut down the opposition's best scorer.

3. Oftentimes you can get "sleeper" picks who did not perform up to their abilities during qualifications, but who remedied their problems by the time eliminations come around. Maybe there was some mechanical issue that wasn't fixed until Saturday morning. Or maybe all that was separating the robot from being a great scorer was a simple change. At San Diego, 1572 started the event with a shooter, and ended with a power dumper. Their record was not great, but by the end you could tell that they were one of the best bots there. Asking around in the pits is the only good way to figure out what issues people have had, and how they have been addressed.

4. Too often people stop scouting way, way too early. On practice day there are tons of scouts in the crowds, yet on Saturday morning they are often somewhere else. Don't let what a team does on the practice field (likely with less than 6 robots on it at once) sway your judgment too heavily, and likewise just because selections are about to begin doesn't mean you can pack up.

5. In this era of 3000+ team numbers, I find that keeping teams straight is a challenge in its own right. Pictures are your friend. Remember team names, colors, chants, etc. All the scouting in the world won't help unless you keep track of it!

6. Ask your drive team for thoughts. Some teams have fantastic machines, but are impossible to work with. Others have modest robots but are true team players. In the playoffs, you will get farther with 3 decent robots and one TEAM than with 3 amazing robots playing separately (at least this year - this isn't always the case).

Good luck!

[Rich Kressly]

Asking this question is a LOT like asking, "What's the best robot design?"

I think it's more about meeting your team's needs and fitting the parameters and goals under which you operate. Once you have defined what your available resources (human and otherwise) will be at an event, have decided whether your team is best served by a high-tech, low-tech, or combination approach, and you decide whether your scouting effort will be single- or multiple-team, THEN you're ready to sit down and develop the detailed system that works for your team.

Developing/choosing the system BEFORE you consider parameters, goals, etc makes no sense to me because I never want to find out after the fact that it was "too much paper, too few people." Not that any system never needs analysis or improvements after the fact, but asking yourselves the right questions before investing deeply in any system should help a team prevent any huge mismatches that lead to poor outcomes.

.02 for what it's worth.

[Lil' Lavery]

I'm going to have to echo Rich Kressly's statements is that it really depends on your team and your resources. Not every solution is going to provide the info that every team wants nor will every team have the resources to impliment each solution.

I'd suggest having a couple of those people walk around the pits on Thursday and have mini "interviews" with other teams to learn about the capabilities of their robots. As stated, nobody is going to tell you they suck, but you will often learn the "potential" of each bot and its basic capabilities. This data is going to help with pre-match planning on Friday more than alliance selection on Saturday, but it's valuable to have. It takes time and paper to gather (especially with 59 teams at VCU), but if you keep it organized (binder) it's not a terrible task.

On Friday and Saturday, especially Friday, have as many people as you can spare watching matches. While an ideal solution would be 12 people watching, one on each robot and one on each HP, with two more entering data into an access database and pumping it out into an uber excel spreadsheet that calculates everything.... that's not going to happen.
Have some people who are dedicated and observant watch matches and take some notes on the good teams. Have the small group meet discuss good teams with your drivers and coach to help pick out certain teams that are doing well in various aspects of the game. Make sure they don't lose track of human players, defensive abilities, or other features too!

You're blessed with the fact you're at the best regional there is, NASA/VCU. I love the regional, and the teams are fantastic to work with. If possible, try to arrange a way to share scouts and data with some other teams (best if arranged beforehand, teams are going to be less willing when you ask them Friday morning). 1137 has already offered their help in this thread, and I know a number of other teams should be willing. I'd start with two other NC teams, both of whom are successful, 2108 and 435. If they aren't willing, there are a number of other veteran teams who may, such as 122, 1033, 1541, or 388.

[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.

[katd30]

Thank you so much everyone! This will all really help. Kersten, I would be very grateful if you would share notes with us at VCU. Once again thank you so much!

[Molten]

I forgot something. Make sure to have fun while scouting. It makes it easier and it is a general misconception that scouts don't have as much fun.I like to prove them wrong.

Good luck at the event. Tell us how the scouting went if you like, I'm sure I'm not the only one that is curious.