Scouting, is it important?

[jamie_1930]

I was having this discussion with another teammate today, is scouting important? I'm interested to see what you guys think and I'm pretty sure for a lot of you the immediate thing is "He's crazy, how can you not love scouting!?", so let me explain myself first.

First off I'm the Drive Team Captain for my team, 2228, and I have been for since the beginning of last season. To this date I have yet to find any of our scouting information useful during competition. It's much more useful, I find, to have a few good eyes out there watching the games and then before each match I'll discuss it with them briefly and find out if there is anything they've seen that I haven't or if they think we need to watch out or don't have to worry about at all. Plus for the past several years for scouting we've made up our sheets, and constructed our database, then at competition we make up a schedule and have every team member rotate in sitting there and circling in bubbles like they're taking a test instead of enjoying themselves at the competition. I think it be much better if we just did away with scouting.

[Monty Python]

I suggest that you put on your flame shield as I suspect that I am going to be the first in a long line of people who disagree with you. But that's all right, it's your opinion and you're entitled to it.

That said, scouting has been tremendously important to me as a driver. Frequently before matches, our chief scouter will come to me and tell me how consistent they are, how they score, what defense needs to be played on them, their autonomous modes, and most importantly, where they score. In short, a lot of information that allows us to plan a more accurate and specific strategy that relies on information that takes more to gather than just having a few people watching matches. For instance, this team scores here and here around the 1:15 mark consistently, so try to play defense at this point in this way.

[Bjenks548]

I see your point to scouting not being important, however I have to disagree. As the lead strategist for 548 I have found that assigning a few robots to a student to know inside and out helps a lot. Going to your alliance partners and knowing what robot works best in which zone helped out a ton. Also guessing at your opponents strategy was helpful because it told you where your alliance might need two robots or where to play defense. I also agree that some of the scouting done is worthless. Again this year, I don't need to know what kind of ball possessor a robot uses, just how well it works. That's just my observations from two years on drive team and one year of strategy.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Bjenks548

I see your point to scouting not being important, however I have to disagree. As the lead strategist for 548 I have found that assigning a few robots to a student to know inside and out helps a lot. Going to your alliance partners and knowing what robot works best in which zone helped out a ton. Also guessing at your opponents strategy was helpful because it told you where your alliance might need two robots or where to play defense. I also agree that some of the scouting done is worthless. Again this year, I don't need to know what kind of ball possessor a robot uses, just how well it works. That's just my observations from two years on drive team and one year of strategy.

Our team has never entered a match without strategy influenced from our scouting material. Our team has developed our scouting over the years and have an advanced system to chart what a robot does and how long they play zones. It has tremendously helped our alliance selections and have made several good picks in every tournament, the most notable would be team 1058 at GSR this past year. They made it through to be the third pick by the number 2 alliance as many alliances had overlooked them based on rank the day before, our scouting data showed them to be high in ball advances and scores. Our data has been extremely effective in determining match strategy and have won many matches every season that seemed to be un-winnable, but were due to determining a solid strategy based on facts.


Just my thoughts.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by jamie_1930

It's much more useful, I find, to have a few good eyes out there watching the games and then before each match I'll discuss it with them briefly and find out if there is anything they've seen that I haven't or if they think we need to watch out or don't have to worry about at all.

What you've described is also scouting. We try to do both objective scouting (like the paper sheets you describe) as well as subjective scouting where a few smart people try to figure out the teams strategy and tendencies. We scout both for strategy for the next match, and for choosing who to pick. In both cases, we use the objective data as the starting point, and then modify our plans based on the subjective data.

Just like our robot, we improve the scouting throughout the season. We usually find that at the first regional we either collect too much objective data, or not the right types of objective data.

[Bethie42]

Ooh, scouting, my favorite subject! I was at a FIRST demonstration yesterday and was talking with a new member of our team, and a member of another team who said, 'You haven't told him about scouting? When I hear scouting, I think of Bethany!'
Anyways! I have been scouting captain for three years, probably the first person on our team to take scouting really seriously and invest a lot of time in it.

By the end of the first day of regionals this year, I had a personal knowledge of most teams on the field. And could spout off this memorized data to our team captain...she liked that

I always scout with the intention of being in a position to tell our team captain who to pick on Saturday morning. In reality, we have never been in a picking position. Scouting has, however, helped us immensely in playing from hour to hour. Before each match I will give our driver all the data I've collected on the teams we're playing with and against. Often we're the only team on our alliance with a familiarity of our competition. The same thing happens in finals, although unhappily I've sometimes known that our alliance partners [who picked us] were not as strong as they could have been, or had unwisely chosen our third partner. [Which they would not have done had they had as good a scouting system as ours...and on it goes.]

One type of scouting that I personally attach little value to is pit scouting. [I'd love to hear other peoples' opinions on this!] Because our small team is not always able to muster anyone else to help me scout, I consider it of much more value to watch every match, than to go round to a regional with 60+ teams and talk to each one. They give me data that I hardly ever refer to: I always trust what I've seen on the field, rather than what they say [or are sure] their robot can accomplish.

One big thing I see in favor of pit scouting is building rapport with other teams. I personally enjoy meeting other team members and promoting our own team And that sort of relationship can pay off big on Saturday. Then there's the Friday afternoon schmoozing....but that is much easier if you already have rapport with the team in question.

So to conclude this, I'd say that if you have a small team, focus entirely on match scouting: if you have one or two extra people, send them round to the pits. Oh and try to hang out with other teams after hours/during lunch. Although I am always busy every minute with compiling the data....can I get an 'Amen!' for a bigger scouting team?

[ttldomination]

Originally Posted by jamie_1930

First off I'm the Drive Team Captain for my team, 2228, and I have been for since the beginning of last season. To this date I have yet to find any of our scouting information useful during competition. It's much more useful, I find, to have a few good eyes out there watching the games and then before each match I'll discuss it with them briefly and find out if there is anything they've seen that I haven't or if they think we need to watch out or don't have to worry about at all. Plus for the past several years for scouting we've made up our sheets, and constructed our database, then at competition we make up a schedule and have every team member rotate in sitting there and circling in bubbles like they're taking a test instead of enjoying themselves at the competition. I think it be much better if we just did away with scouting.

This is actually how I felt all the way up until this year. At Palmetto, one member on the drive team would receive a text about the opponents and I would know pretty much how to handle the match from that.

But when I got to worlds and I saw what some of the other teams were doing, that was intense. For example, we played with team 217, and they had a folder of information for each team. We were able to sit down and develop a game plan without leaving the pits. And then another team had an entire excel database, which was pretty awesome.

I think that if you can scout, and you can scout well, then it will be to your advantage. But if your scouting information is lacking, or the people are not focused, then you'll find the data might not be worth while.

- Sunny

[quinxorin]

Scouting is very important. What you described, a few good eyes watching and then talking to the driver, actually is scouting; no one said it actually has to be on paper. What our team does, among many, many other things, is the team members scout, then the scouting group and the scouting coordinator write up a strategy. Our scouting appears to be quality, as various other teams come to us and ask to use our information. (ask Bjenks548, he will tell you). In fact, last year (Lunacy) there were two separate matches in which we beat a highly qualified team (you should be able to guess), and our drivers attributed it entirely to scouting.

[smurfgirl]

I like to say that there are three factors in the recipe for success at a competition: a good robot, a good drive team, and a good strategy.

The third component, the strategy, relies heavily on scouting. Scouting is incredibly valuable to strategy, alliance partner selection, and success in match outcomes. You can have a fantastic bot and drivers who know how to operate it, but if you don't know how to work with your partners or how to counteract your opponents, you won't be reaching your maximum potential as a team or as an alliance.

If you find that your scouting data isn't valuable to you, it probably means that you're just not taking down the right information. Think about teams' robots in terms of their strengths and weaknesses, how they could complement your own team or why they would not do so. Look at trends in their performance over the course of a competition- are they getting better or getting worse? Have they had technical difficulties and have they resolved them? Some more qualitative observations could help to round out your quantitative data and give you something more meaningful to work off of.

(For example: just because a team scores an average of 12 times a match doesn't mean you should pick them as an alliance partner- if you both score can only score from the near zone, you might not be the best match. However, if they can score 12 times in a match and they complement your team's playing style and abilities, they're a great pick! Even if you're up against powerhouses, look for their vulnerabilities and how you could stop them- can they only score from a certain angle or position? If it takes them a long time to line up with the goal in order to score, you could try bumping their corner to misalign them and cause them to take up more valuable time. The exact things you want to watch out for vary by game, but you should get the picture.)

[Chris is me]

Scouting is the most important thing a team can do at competition. At first you might think it's just useful for alliance captains but there are so many times before and during eliminations where good and up to date data will either save your butt or give you an edge. I think what really separates the great teams from the greatest teams is their scouting efforts.

If your team doesn't care about accurate scouting and you've never regretted a second round pick, you've been incredibly lucky. Luckily my team highly values scouting and my team's head scout is a very dedicated hard worker, so we've managed to grab teams that were absolute steals in the draft before.

I have seen some great teams get completely shortchanged by lackluster scouting. Do you really want to be the team with the #1 robot in the country making stupid selections because your data is terrible?

---

edit: A note. While the responders above have many great points, and qualitative scouting is very valuable, it is always, always better to have quantitative data in addition to qualitative data. You're shortchanging your team if you have the manpower for both and only choose one.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by jamie_1930

I think it be much better if we just did away with scouting.

I heartily recommend that approach. One less team for us to worry about then.

No, seriously: smurfgirl said it best. Read her post again.

Scouting wins matches and regionals. If the data you're getting from scouting isn't helpful, change the kind of data they collect.

We have 2 kinds of scouting: Pit scouting and match scouting.

Pit scouting collects basic info about the robot: number of wheels, type of end effector, whether they have a hanging mechanism or not, stuff like that. We sometimes use that to help decide on whether to pick a team, and more often on how to work with or against a team. The scouts who do this are our 'ambassadors', the really outgoing types. They make a lot of friends for themselves and the team.

Match scouting collects performance data: goals scored, how many times they hang, which zone they play, and the like. This is collected by six students watching every match, one for each robot. All the data is entered on laptops and collected on a local server in real time. (We happily make this data available to anyone who wants it).

Match scouting, for those doing the scouting, is awful. Nobody really likes to do it, but they all understand just how critically important complete and accurate information is.

Last season we also videotaped* every match at the regional. This was a tremendous help when deciding which team would fit our strategy best. Note that how well a team actually performs (i.e., their ranking) is not as relevant as their capabilities. Example: At VCU regional, Team Blue Cheese (1086) ranked 10th I think. We didn't know them from before ever, but their actions on the field fit in perfectly with how we thought to best play and win the game. We won the regional, even though there were some higher-scoring and -performing teams we could have picked. (Only aftre we pciked them did we learn of 1086's reputation as a powerhouse team. We know why now, too).


*Does anyone actually use tape anymore? Unfortunately, our video of VCU got lost (Ethan!) and was never posted to TBA.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by jamie_1930

... I think it be much better if we just did away with scouting.

If you add one word I agree 110%. Because when you add that one word, the statement becomes a tautology.

Try this and see where it leads you:

"I think it would be much better if we just did away with useless scouting."

Toss out what isn't helping. Redirect the freed resources (people, time, whatever) into what does have an effect. Continuously improve. Replace the illusion of scouting with actual scouting.

Actual scouting gives the drivers, designers, pit crew, programmers, everyone the information they need. One way to determine what they need is to pay attention to what they use and what they don't use. If information isn't being used because it is irrelevant, then stop producing it.

It's just common sense, but common sense often gets lost in habits. Also, common sense sometimes becomes misdirected when producers and consumers aren't "on the same page".

So, "Yes" replace any and everything that is truly ineffective with something (either on the consumption or production side) with something that is more useful. Who can argue with that?

Blake

[Francis-134]

Originally Posted by gblake

If you add one word I agree 110%. Because when you add that one word, the statement becomes a tautology.

Try this and see where it leads you:

"I think it would be much better if we just did away with useless scouting."

Toss out what isn't helping. Redirect the freed resources (people, time, whatever) into what does have an effect. Continuously improve. Replace the illusion of scouting with actual scouting.

Actual scouting gives the drivers, designers, pit crew, programmers, everyone the information they need. One way to determine what they need is to pay attention to what they use and what they don't use. If information isn't being used because it is irrelevant, then stop producing it.

It's just common sense, but common sense often gets lost in habits. Also, common sense sometimes becomes misdirected when producers and consumers aren't "on the same page".

So, "Yes" replace any and everything that is truly ineffective with something (either on the consumption or production side) with something that is more useful. Who can argue with that?

Blake

He is 100% correct. Look at the information you gathered this year and see what you actually used.

I can't tell you how many times in my years in FIRST teams have come up to me and asked me questions that are mostly useless. My favorite must be "how many wheels do you have?". Once you do this, you may find your pit scouting reduced to only a handful of questions.

The best thing you can do is look at a team as they actually play and either objectively or subjectively determine how good they are. Objectively you can find this by some sort of formula, or just something as simple as how many points does a team score (this is very dependent on the game). Subjectively you can watch a whole bunch of matches and determine how good a team is and where their weaknesses/strengths are.

I find the best overall method includes a combination of both.

[gorrilla]

Look at The Florida regional from this year.

My team was sitting in 8th, we picked two teams that were way down in the rankings. We beat the #1 seed alliance, then we made it all the way to the Finals and lost due to mechanical failure. we have never "really" scouted before and we knew we were going to be playing some tough teams this year. So we decided to dedicate two of our team members to scout, and they did a good job, we picked 79 from the mid-30's and 801 from IIRC 28th. Both teams had very excellent robots, but had some bad luck during the matches. If we had not scouted so thoroughly I do not think we would have even made it past the qf's.

[IzzieB]

Originally Posted by jamie_1930

...To this date I have yet to find any of our scouting information useful during competition. It's much more useful, I find, to have a few good eyes out there watching the games and then before each match I'll discuss it with them briefly and find out if there is anything they've seen that I haven't or if they think we need to watch out or don't have to worry about at all. Plus for the past several years for scouting we've made up our sheets, and constructed our database, then at competition we make up a schedule and have every team member rotate in sitting there and circling in bubbles like they're taking a test instead of enjoying themselves at the competition. I think it be much better if we just did away with scouting.

Usefulness of scouting varies with system, and I would say it is easiest to break into 2 types; pre-match scouting, specifically for relaying to the coach before matches, and long-term for in the event of being an alliance captain at a large tournament with many teams. Our pre-match scouting usually consists of one person seeing who we are playing next, and jotting notes for what the robots' roles are in the alliance, what to watch out for. Obviously knowing "this robot is very fast at back and forth defense" etc. would be useful in advance. As for the filling in bubbles, test-taking approach: yes, this is boring, and this is long-term scouting. If you were, say, second alliance captain; by the time your second selection comes, you may not know any of the robots that are left specifically, if they weren't standouts. This is where tallying those bubbles comes in; rather than sorting through a horde of strategic notes, all the tallies give you a cut-to-the-chase.

So yes, scouting is useful-knowing what they are going to helps driveteam confidence. To reduce tediousness, scout only the later matches and get a lot of people so you don't have to do it that much.