How does your team scout?

[miniman]

Team 701 took a leaf out of team 100's book. We decided this year to base out scouting around the Nintendo DS system. We did this for a few reasons, the first being they are light weight and portable. They are readily available, day before we leave for competition we tell every one to bring their DS and charging cable (we try to end up with 7). Lastly the data is already digital data that doesn't need to be copied over from any kind of hand written sheet, just download and analyze.

In choosing what areas to scout we focused on purely empirical data. Stuff that isn't based on opinion. Things like scores, number of balls advanced, start area. No robot rating by the scouts, no opinions, just cold data.

The process we used was very simple, during prep/practice day pictures were taken of all the robots and the match list was digitized. Pictures and list were then saved to 6 individual SD cards along with the software written during build season. the SD cards were then inserted in the NDS (via special adapter) so that the software could run, and access the pictures and list. During a qualification match 6 scouts, each with a DS would each scout the specific robot that the DS was assigned (based on the match list). once all the data was collected and saved to the SD card it was transfered to a laptop, run through Microsoft access, analyzed, and manipulated to give rankings based on what our alliance requirements were.

Next year we are looking to overhaul our software, moving from C to C++. We are also hoping to take advantage of the wireless capabilities of the DS.