Thoughts on "being scouted" from a Rookie team (please comment)

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

He was also accounting for the 5 mobility points.

OH darn, got me before the edit. Thanks for pointing that out though.

[stuart2054]

Good teams will always scout for partners that fit their strategy and play smart. I.E. they see what needs to be done and do it if they can and adapt their play when the strategy is not working during a match.

Also you absolutly MUST promote your team and robot to likely top seed teams. Especially ones with whom your think you have a role with and compliment. A good inbounder is valuable especially if they also play good clean defense well. You should not have probelms getting picked from what you describe.

[D.Allred]

Originally Posted by eneubec1

Hi All,
Here is what we concluded :
1.) Most of the scouting approaches used by teams are very heavily weighted for scoring goals, and light on assisting as well as an efficient catcher/inbounder.
2.) A strong defensive robot that can also pass and catch is not necessarily something teams look for in their scouting reports. ** This is a key point that I need some feedback around.
3.) Being a solid and cooperative team member is not something that is scouted for...but being an uncooperative alliance member will surely get your scratched from somebody list. (We did that with our team, and I am sure this is common practice).
4.) Eliminating the "slop" in our el-torros MUST be fixed before next event.

Our thoughts on how we can improve for the next competition:
1a.) In auton always take a ball and put it in the low goal.
1b) Another auton strategy would be around when we compete against a powerhouse that plans on shooting multiple high goals: Place our robot in the goalie zone directly infront of them. Put the goalie post up and stop them from scoring the straight shot. (A very different approach...but would work to our strength and stop the other team from scoring 20-40 pts in auton). Our fear is ...This would not show up on scouting reports as a strength as we didn't score any auton point.
2.) Always score atleast 1 low goal per game. (even if we fill the role as an inbounder). Clean up auton balls would be another easy way to do this.
3.) Consider visiting the top 8 seeded teams and promoting our robot's ability and why we may be a good partner for them.
4.) Take some videos of us catching the ball thrown over the truss on the practice field. (Use this to prove we can do it)
5.) The last one is ...get to the top 8 and pick 2 decent high shooters. Something our team now has confidence in achieving.

Please comment on our conclusions and if we are missing something.

P.S. I am not looking to start a thread on the trials and tribulations of scouting and being scouted. I am really just looking for some guidance around the conclusions for a rookie team's perspective. Help me understand the gap in our conclusion.

Looks like a good plan to me. Eliminating "slop" in the el toros sounds like it might be a limiting factor. You have an easy to load robot, but you must be able to quickly and reliably eject the ball to prevent time wasters.

Drive trains can also make teams hestitant to pick you. I'm not trying to start a drive train debate. However, it would be good to know what you have "under the hood."

Good luck!
David

[dudefise]

Originally Posted by eneubec1

2.) A strong defensive robot that can also pass and catch is not necessarily something teams look for in their scouting reports. ** This is a key point that I need some feedback around.

I think that any team that isn't looking at these things is doing their scouting wrong. It's a one-ball game; not everyone can be scoring at the same time which makes it that much more important.

We picked a team that sounds fairly similar to yours at the Central Valley regional, and found great success in working with them. Experienced scouts do notice this kind of stuff; we later found out that 254 was originally considering picking 5136 with the 1st pick as an inbounder and defense bot. They ultimately chose to pick 973, but if 973 hadn't made their comeback (and what a comeback it was), we wouldn't have gotten a chance to work with 5136, who proved to be an incredibly effective inbounder with solid defense.

Adding the extra auto capabilities certainly can't hurt. As far as pitching to the top 8 teams, it can work, although their scouts should notice you guys. One of the issues with scouting is it is difficult to objectively scout defense, so make sure you point it out to teams' subjective scouts when they ask questions! Clean, effective defense will be noticed by good scouts.

Keep doing what you do best. It's way better to have a robot that can do one thing, and extremely well, than to have a robot that is mediocre at everything.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by dudefise

As far as pitching to the top 8 teams, it can work, although their scouts should notice you guys. One of the issues with scouting is it is difficult to objectively scout defense, so make sure you point it out to teams' subjective scouts when they ask questions! Clean, effective defense will be noticed by good scouts.

In our experience at Regionals not all of the top 8 teams (or the 8 alliance captains which extends further down) have great qualitative scouting. (We were there a few years ago.) So making a pitch to the teams sitting in 4-10 could be fruitful.

[eneubec1]

Thanks so much for the great responses.
Please understand we are not complaining about not being chosen. I personally have found that success can sometimes blurr the "critical eye" to still find our areas of improvement. This post is all about helping us regain focus on the critical eye and focus on the key areas for improvement. The responses posted here have done that for us and we are very grateful for that guidance.

Last night, I had my drivers read this thread and then we watched the replay of our games with a critical eye. We uncovered some good lessons for improvement (Robot and Driving). We also decided to review our match recordings every day at lunch & end of day. When time allows for it, we can also do this between matches.


Thanks again!!

[zinthorne]

This is surprising to me. From the description of your robot you sound like a great 2nd pick. I have this year seen a few examples of teams having poor scouting. For example, this year, my team was ranked 9th at the end of qualification matches. We are a solid shooter an pick up/defense robot. We were not picked at all until we moved into the 6th captain spot and the 5th captain asked us to join their alliance, our scouter quickly realized that another great shooter and pick up/defense robot was still not picked. So we rejected the 5th captain. They went on to pick a different team. We then proceeded to pick the team we wanted who had already been I believe a captain in a district event and won the district event. Some how the team did not get picked earlier despite having already won an even and having great stats. They were however not ranked very high in win-loss ranking. This just shows that top robots can get passed on if teams do not have very good scouting.

I would say that you guys could make sure to tell scouters in the pits your strengths. You could also makes sure to talk to other team's scouters. Also find ways to get your name out there to other teams.

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by eneubec1

Hi All,

We ended the elim rounds ranked 12 (and was in the top 10 for most of the day). Our team was relatively surprised that we were not picked.

You've got the right approach, but also have to remember that sometimes things happen that just don't make a lot of sense. Our team also finished 12 once and was not picked when we thought we had a lot to offer.

On the other hand, we were also picked once when we were ranked 62nd and thought we had little to offer.

We once beat the best team in the country when they had an inexplicable breakdown... we once got knocked out of first spot when we had an inexplicable breakdown.

Okay, we eventually found the loose wire that caused our breakdown, but for three matches it was inexplicable.

All I can suggest is that with a positive, focused approach like you're bringing that you're likely going to have more good luck than bad. It just takes a while for things to balance out.

Stick with it!

Jason