Best Ways To Scout

[Nibbles]

On the contrary, the only thing to know is how do we score more points then the opposing alliance. The most important number to know is how many points does that team score on average. For selecting a team during eliminations, this is really the only thing you need to know, the only thing on the field that has a real limiting economic factor would be empty cells (at a certain point getting better with empty cells won't score you additional points as well as originally, a sort of declining marginal utility).
For strategy during matches, all you need to know is weaknesses. Is there any special way you need to use to pin a team? I plan on keeping a small binder for this purpose this year.

The smaller and more efficient the better. I plan to again use only one other person to help get all the necessary data, and zero pit scouting (at least during matches), those team members are better utilized cheering for your team in the stands or fixing robots in the pits.

[Molten]

Originally Posted by Nibbles

On the contrary, the only thing to know is how do we score more points then the opposing alliance. The most important number to know is how many points does that team score on average. For selecting a team during eliminations, this is really the only thing you need to know, the only thing on the field that has a real limiting economic factor would be empty cells (at a certian point getting better with empty cells won't score you additional points as well as origionally, a sort of declining marginal utility).
For strategy during matches, all you need to know is weaknesses. Is there any special way you need to use to pin a team? I plan on keeping a small binder for this purpose this year.

The smaller and more efficent the better. I plan to again use only one other person to help get all the necessary data, and zero pit scouting (at least during matches), those team members are better utilized cheering for your team in the stands or fixing robots in the pits.

You do it your way, I'll do it mine. I am certain that having any less then a mass number of people in the stands is a complete waste of resources. I'm not going to change my mind. I know what works for me. I've tried the stands and in the end all I got were pointless numbers. I'm sure I'm not going to convince you. It is apparent that you are not able to get what you need from the people in the pits and that you would be wasting your time there. Let's just agree to disagree on means of scouting. Instead, let's discuss what to scout for.

For instance, I notice you seem to favor the offensive points such as how well the team scores. I do that some, but my focus is much more widespread. I go for the defensive capabilities, driver ability, over all reliability, and the points do come into play. But mostly the points are just numbers. What matters isn't how much they score, it is how much they contribute. An assist, a block, and a goal are all about the same in my eyes.

[IKE]

I would like to give the absolute minimum for scouting.
1. Have a list of teams and write a couple things about each bot. Start with a description ex. Team####:RED and White Kit chassis with big Arm This is best done by walking around the pits on practice day or Early Friday morning. Make sure you get notes on everybody!
2. Watch a lot of matches. Initially write down match number and all the bots in it. Try to look for bots you will be competing against later as it is most important to get notes on them early. After a while pay attention to those that do not have any comments about them. Also pay attention to effective and ineffective strategies.
3. Before the awards on Friday, go through your notes and add a note about performance to each bot. If you don't remember them, head to the pits and look at the machine again.
4. Friday night make a pick list. Make sure it has 24 teams. If you think you have any prayer of being a top 8 team this is extremely important. If you think you might be a first round pick, this is extremely important (the picker may not have a good pick list). First do a coarse sort. Great, good, eh, and no-way. Picking out the greats are easy. Picking out the no-ways is generally not too bad. Sorting goods from ehs is the tough part. What you will likely find is that you can make a list of about 20 machines you like, 8 you don't, and 12-20 that you really aren't sure what to do with. The bad thing is that these are the second pick group for the Top 4 alliances and are very important. If you can't pick, go in first thing Saturday morning and decide on those last 4.
5. Watch more matches Saturday morning and refine the order of your list better. Make sure that you focus on all 24 slots.
6. Clean up your pick list and send it out with the selection captain. You want to make sure that only positive things (or at least not super negative)are on this list as they may have to share it with their new partner.
This will actually work reasonably well. There are better methods, but this can literally be done with 1 person.

This year is unique in that the human player plays a huge roll in the game. Ideally you want to have some scouting data on human players as well. This is too much for 1 person to watch, so I would go around the pits and ask how good their payload specialist is. Remember, few will actually l"ie" to you, but most will tell you that they can repeatedly do whatthey did in their very best match. No one at Kettering made more than 75% of their Moonrocks on average, but many felt that they were shooting around 90% (remembering that time there was a dead robot in front of them and they went 12/13). It really isn't lying as much as selective memory.

Good luck!

[rogerlsmith]

FIRST Objective is posting scouting data again this year. Anyone can use this and it will give you an analysis for any FRC team from any completed regional or district event.

Go to: www.firstobjective.org and in the left column you'll see scouting tools. You can also view a similar analysis from the past 2 years.

Another cool thing is that you can access this same report from any wireless or mobile device that can access the Internet. Just point it to
http://www.firstobjective.org/lunacy.wml (for 2009).

Unfortunately I do not have complete scoring data from the Buckeye or Oklahoma City Regional events. As soon as I can find that information, those events will be included in their entirety.

If you notice any problems, please let me know.

Thanks

[n_ambrogi013]

we find that it's essential to have our scouts communicating with our drive team throughout the competition. the people who are on the field often see things that we miss from the stands.

they also provide feedback about how drivers on other teams are to interatct with, which is critical--if an alliance can't function as a team, the abilities of the individual machines can sometimes be negated. so if you can tear your drive team away from the machine for a few minutes, have your scouts talk to them.

[Faith]

My experience, I think both scouting in the pits and on the field is important. From the pit, talking to the teams, you can find out a lot about the robot. You can tell if they are doing what they want to be doing based on how frantically they are working on their robot, you can generally see how well they are doing by how excited the team is.
But field scouting also comes into play. While you can tell a lot from a pit, none of it is definite, and it is hard to compare teams directly. Having some hard numbers is great, because you can take the teams you know you want to pick and compare them more directly, make a more refined list. It also shows their strengths and weaknesses more clearly. In the pit, it is hard to tell how quickly the robot moves on the field. Is it easy to pin, or does it escape with an empty trailer every match? Pit scouting is great, and it makes it easier to tell who you want to work with, but it won't tell you everything. Field scouting is great, but without the background the numbers are hard to make something of.
I also agree with the Saturday morning refining of the list. You have to have 24 teams picked by Friday, because there simply isn't time on Saturday. But Saturday is a great time to watch the final matches, make sure robots are still working, and see who made an improvement that will bump them up on your list.

[Kersten]

haha Will do then, I shouldnt be too hard to find with my bright blue rocket sauce shirt =P

[Nibbles]

Originally Posted by Molten

For instance, I notice you seem to favor the offensive points such as how well the team scores. I do that some, but my focus is much more widespread. I go for the defensive capabilities, driver ability, over all reliability, and the points do come into play. But mostly the points are just numbers. What matters isn't how much they score, it is how much they contribute. An assist, a block, and a goal are all about the same in my eyes.

Woa, I wasn't trying to disprove anything.

Pit scouting can be useful, seeing robots up close is important if you are not familiar with how they might work. If you are going to try and spin robots around as your strategy, you need to know from looking at their driving if they are a skid, crab, Ackerman, etc, which if you don't know pit scouting will certainly be useful.

Offense is no more important then defense, what matters is the margin, and the difference between the scores, like you pointed out. Sacrificing that super cell is worth it if it is the only way to score more then 15 points elsewhere. And again, simple is better. You don't need to keep track of individual numbers (though you could, and I plan to somehow) since the math after ~6 matches from unpenalized scores alone is pretty accurate if you can calculate it, and (roughly) economically correct, taking into account defense and assists like the empty cells.

That said, developing the effective field scouting is pretty hard. I am working out the statistics, basic economics, linear algebra, and calculus trying to figure out what the numbers I get actually mean, how to predict matches, and describe how resources are used, how much each strategy actually contributes to a win. Implementing something that is shown to work pretty well (as I attest) like the "OPR" requires some technology (and better then a TI-84+ for more then 30 teams) <ins>but drastically increases the effectiveness with respect to time</ins>.

All said, do whatever you need to do, just don't lose sight of the fact that what matters for winning a match is the difference between your and the opposing alliance score, it is easy to do.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Molten

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.

While you're certainly entitled to your opinion and to do it your way, I don't think you could find a single team with a Championship banner who'd agree with you. Probably couldn't even find a team who's captained a regional alliance to gold either.

Teams often won't and don't lie to you, they'll tell you what they expect their robot to do. But that's often not what actually happens. I know many teams who have gone into events with very very high expectations for their bots, both from themselves and others, who ended up seeding very poorly and missing eliminations entirely.
Perfect example, 103 in 2007 on Galileo. 103 won New Jersey and made the semis in Philly. They had a great machine. But it didn't play well and missed the eliminations completely. If you just had talked to them in the pits, they'd tell you, honestly, what they expected from their robot, which had high capabilities.

When in the pits, you don't get to see things like driver skill and tendencies, coaching skill and tendencies, human player skill and tendencies, or how they react to specific other teams maneuvers. The average scout in the stands might not notice a lot of this stuff either (only the really good do), but you have no chance in the pits.

There is no substitute for field scouting, period. Not every team will have the resources to do it at the ultimate level, but you still need it. You think the robot was the only reason 1114 was so good last year?
Consider this. 1114 showed up at 5:15 in the morning last year so they could get the best seats in the division to aid scouting.

Bottom line. Nothing replaces stand scouting. Pit scouting is still important, but you can't accurately create a good pick list or proper strategy without stand scouting.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by n_ambrogi013

they also provide feedback about how drivers on other teams are to interatct with, which is critical--if an alliance can't function as a team, the abilities of the individual machines can sometimes be negated. so if you can tear your drive team away from the machine for a few minutes, have your scouts talk to them.

Definitely, the personality of the team that you're considering will have an impact. I'll explain later.

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

While you're certainly entitled to your opinion and to do it your way, I don't think you could find a single team with a Championship banner who'd agree with you. Probably couldn't even find a team who's captained a regional alliance to gold either.
[...]
Bottom line. Nothing replaces stand scouting. Pit scouting is still important, but you can't accurately create a good pick list or proper strategy without stand scouting.

I'll speak for 330's 2005 team on this one--we couldn't have done it without stand scouting.

A little story from 2005 that illustrates both points: Around noonish on Saturday in the Newton division, 330 was finishing up their pick list. There were 2 teams that the scouts rated about equally, and both were lower than 2nd seed. At one pit, the picker and helpers waited... and nobody really paid attention to them. The other team had almost the opposite reaction. Guess which one got picked?

Now, it's picking time, second round. 330 and their first pick have one more team to choose. There was a solid team there, not flashy, just solid, that the scouts (stand scouts, mind you) on both teams had noticed. They were still available somehow. They got the call and the three teams went on to win it all.

You see what I mean? Personality says a lot about you as a team. It can make the difference between winning and making an early exit. And the stand scouting can spot things that pit scouting misses. Good pit scouting can catch a lot of things, but good stand scouting tells what really happens.

The 2 absolute worst ways to scout, as counterexamples: Not at all, or by rankings. I'm looking at the L.A. standings as an example. 4 of the 6 best robots there are not in the top 5, and one of those isn't in the top 8. There are also some really good "sleeper" teams that are waking up in the bottom half of the rankings. The good scouts will see that and spot some pretty good "steals" tomorrow. And the teams without good scouting, or with "ranking scouting", are going to get a bit of a trailer-filling.

[Molten]

Originally Posted by EricH

The 2 absolute worst ways to scout, as counterexamples: Not at all, or by rankings....And the teams without good scouting, or with "ranking scouting", are going to get a bit of a trailer-filling.

Agreed. One year, can't remember which, 1766 made it in the top 8. Not saying we weren't good, but we were definitely not one of the best teams there. This was somewhat due to pit scouting and the fact that we had an awesome driver (the bot was ok that year) but mostly it was luck. We ranked highly because we got lucky on alliances. If it wasn't for that, we would have ranked around 20. The opposite happened this year. 1766 had a pretty good bot but had some bad luck with teams for the rankings. Never really much of a chance to stand out and had a losing record. However, this years bot was 10X better then the year we got to choose our alliance.

[Hanna2325]

A quick easy way is just to make an excel document where u input each teams total points, hp points, robot scoring points, and any other features that you'd like to note. This might take some time with only three people, b/c it is best just to watch one team at a time and track them rather than trying to catch everything on ur own We did it in shift using just paper then added all the info in later to excel. The good thing about having it on the computer is that u can then reorganize it by different features more easily I hope this helps

[Kersten]

I also think that printing of handouts with your robot info on it can be helpful because it tells other team's scouts what they are looking at so they dont have to try and figure out much about your bot but really focus on how well it performs

[IKE]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Teams often won't and don't lie to you, they'll tell you what they expect their robot to do. But that's often not what actually happens.

I talked with 40 teams at Cass Tech today (pits only). Of those forty teams over 20 teams to me the could (and most said often did) score between 7 and 20 moonrocks each match (with the robot). There were only a couple I felt were being perfectly honest. One was a rookie team that when i asked them to explain their machine, the guy was very honest. he said, this is what we designed, but honestly we have mostly just been playing defense because most others score better than us.
I am not skilled enough in the art of interegation to get everything from the pits. Arena observation at a minimum and data when it is useful/possible.