How does your team scout?

[J93Wagner]

Team 93, at least this year, reused a CakePHP database as a starting point, then went on to put in a really slick idea, using a fast-read scanner to enter in the data. In short, a scantron sheet. Three minutes of basic instruction of what to look for and how to fill in the bubbles (although I don't really think they could be called bubbles since they were squares... ) and they were nearly ready to take over for someone. The only downside I notices, it took awhile to fill in those pesky bubbles (squares). At any rate, with good reliable data, it wouldn't take long to figure out who the outstanding robots on the field were.

So if you were taking a look at the sheet you might see:

Scores

Near: [] [] [] [] [] [] [] []
Middle: [] [] [] [] [] [] [] []
Far: [] [] [] [] [] [] [] []

Then all a person would have to do would be fill in the number of []'s that that robot did by each zone. We used the same method with transfers and other types like autonomous mode as well.

Because some traits, like defence, can't be qualitative (or is it quantitative?), a comments box for whatever you want to say is included as well.

That's the major stuff, although the []'s for the program to run properly were included. A.K.A. Team number, match number and type of match.

[penguinfrk]

At the beginning of build season (part of our build process) we list all of the possible objectives to the game. This year, it was scoring goals, elevation, and then suspension. Along with that, we also listed any "obstacles" or extra functions: autonomous, climbing bump, under tunnel, defense.

Our team, at least so far in its history, only attends the Microsoft Seattle Regional, a week 4 or 5 event, so all of our scouts are expected to view webcasts or videos of previous events. We make a finalized scouting sheet, adding whatever we didn't initially list as an objective/function, along with driver skill, human player skill, and W-L-T record.

During the competition, Day 1 we do pit scouting as a priority. Clipboards with the pit map on the back and with pens tied to them (nicely done by one of our mentors) are given to about 6-10 scouts, depending on whoever isn't in the pits helping to pass inspection. Of course, we have a relatively large team (upwards of ~35 students at competition each day and total membership in the 60s), so we have plenty of scouts.

Day 2, the real matches are scouted with one person on each robot. 6 scouts are watching each match, a scout team leader should (I say this because the effectiveness will ultimately depend on the responsibility of this leader, as we learned the hard way this year) be sorting teams. This scout leader should be the most knowledgeable of all the scouts, and if not sorting the actual scouting sheets, should be watching every robot and sorting them into Whitelist (Yes!) or Blacklist (Absolutely not!). Other scouts are having some sort of downtime - alternating scouts each match.

Our mentor had connected to the internet there, so we had full access to the match results from the stands (no need to look at the scrolling standings). If no internet access is available at the competition venue, a hard copy would be printed (we printed it anyways) from day to day. From there, highlighters are your friends!

After day 2, the photographer is expected to have collected all of the robots on to a single storage device (obviously compatible with any laptop we bring). The scout lead should compile a list of 24 (number of teams in the eliminations, to ensure not all will be selected) robots most compatible with yours. We filed them into top tier (expected alliance captains, first picks) and second tier (expected 2nd picks).

On day 3, our team (mostly PR) talks to top tier teams to sell our team. The scouts in the stands scout only our whitelist (top/second tier) robots. We have one person in the pits at all times to talk to teams that swing by. If we're picked 1st or end up alliance captain, we use our second tier list to pick the next round.

[MasterRobot]

For our team, team 2438, we have tried and implemented many systems for scouting over the last few years.

A year or two ago, we started off with a beautiful access database. On the first day, some people would go around and take pictures of each robot to add to the database, then robots were given values based on their performance in categories such as driver skill, offense, or defense. This did not work. I am not how teams use the numbers if they do it this way, but for us, we found the number system impossible to read and understand. Someone could if they wanted too, but the team didn't want to do that, drivers wanted qualitative things, and the captains only wanted a list.

This year we focused on those two goals in creating a scouting database. We use the first day, and part of the second day to take qualitative data, and strategy data on all the teams. We used an html based database with a person who ran from the pit to the arena updating the pit scouting computer with data from the matches. For ranking, we ranked every robot on a 1-6 scale. 1 being the best robot in the match, 6 being the worst. That with the data on the zone taken into consideration, yielded a list of the best performing robots per zone.

We so far like this system because it is simple and friendly to everyone. Plus, this can be used with anywhere from 2 to 10+ scouts working or ranking. The drivers get the strategy and qualitative stuff they want (no confusing "5" for speed numbers) plus we get a list of the top 24 robots for picking. For us, scouting needs to be simple to work and any scouting system, computerized or on paper should be tailored to what the team needs and wants in order to succeed.