paper: Team 33 Scouting Sheet

[IKE]

Originally Posted by Zach O

Interesting. Do you have the same 6 students scout all these matches? It seems if you didn't, your sheet might be too qualitative to get completely accurate data. Of course, you have students who feel that Team X's accuracy is about a 4, but another who thinks it a 2. As compared to a score/miss (which there really aren't "misses" this year, mainly just moving balls between zone) which would give you an accurate data every time, as compared to a student's discretion. Just a suggestion, although they are nice sheets. You collect a lot of data every match.

Do you put these things into a computer/program? It's an easy way to organize and pull data quickly on select teams.

You are correct on the qualitative issues of multiple scouts. We have about 10 students that rotate through the scouting position, and 2 head scouts that do the sorting. Generally the only time we see big discrepencies on qualitative metrics is when a team is extremely inconsistent. This usually is mirroed in their quantitative metrics as well. With consistent teams, we may see an oscillation between 3&4 or 4&5. These qualitative metrics are more for general observation that making an overall decision about a team.
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As far as scouting every match, we do. We just don't use the sheets for every match. By end of the day Friday in Michigan, we have seen 8 matches and have data on at least 6 of them. This is enough to see trends of performance and do a general ranking. We rank the teams and make comments on them about the general abilities and style of play. There are 2 master scouts complimenting this system. Myself and Chet (the nicest Grumpy Old man you will ever meet). We have a list of teams to follow and what we are looking for from them. I will often go talk with the teams Saturday morning that I feel will be in key picking positions or that we need unique strategy from. For instance, I asked 1622 to show me their home row Automode as we were interested in them as a Striker. We aske 148 what had been going on during the tournament (they had a bad Friday) and asked them to showcase certain abilities on Saturday (and boy did they deliver). There were other teams we were considering that frankly fell flat Saturday morning. You can PM me if you are curious if you are one of those teams.

This system has worked very well this year. At the districts were were spot on for who would be playing in elims. The order was frequently different, but the teams playing were not. At MSC, we went 23/24 out of 65 teams playing in Elims. The team not on our list fell over twice in the two matches that their alliance was defeated in. In Archimedes, we were 20/24. There were a couple of surprises in the top 8, and a couple of picks I just didn't (and still don't) understand.
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All this being said, we had a major issue at the Championship. The picklist that we spent 2-3 hours making Friday night was left at the hotel. I thought the head coach had it, he thought I had it. Luckily with the sheets, we were able to reconstruct the list in about 20 minute right before alliance selection. We will add "Make Multiple Copies for Head scouts, Coach, and Team captain" next year. No matter how robust the process, execution is still key!