Time for a Scouting Award--Eagle Scout???

[Citrus Dad]

FIRST offers a number of awards, and sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between some of them. Yet there's no recognition of innovative or outstanding scouting approaches. Yes, good scouting usually leads to wins, but so does good engineering design. And scouting often requires STEM skills.

FIRST already seems to ignore scouting, making the task of acquiring data more difficult than needed and not providing set aside seating for scouts who have to peer around pom poms and giant numbers. It's time for FIRST to acknowledge that scouting can be an important part of team success--certainly more than team spirit. In fact many of the skills used for scouting are just as applicable in the real world as engineering (surprise!).

So FIRST, what do say??

[Steven Donow]

I would love love love this. But the problem is how do you quantify scouting success/what merits the award.

[David8696]

That is SUCH A GOOD IDEA.

[dcarr]

To me, the benefits of good scouting manifest themselves through quality picks and a successful alliance.

Should we also have an award for "best drive team?" I'd think not, because this is already a component of a winning alliance.'

Edit: then again, other awards could be said to be "redundant" on this line of reasoning as well. So maybe this deserves an award of its own!

Completely agree with your points - FIRST would to well to take scouting more seriously, and better exposure to match data and easier seating for scouts would be fantastic.

[MechEng83]

This would be a nightmare to judge. Judges are recruited from the professional world. Often, they have never seen an FRC competition or know what FIRST is prior to walking into the first judges' meeting. When they judge things like machine design, they're drawing on their knowledge base and generally have a good grasp on mechanical/electrical/computer systems. Other judges are recruited for their expertise in things like business planning or social awareness.

IMHO, to judge this would require a panel of judges who are intimately familiar with scouting practices, ranking systems, and how scouting fits in to the competition.

Also, I think the creativity award has been given to teams who have a unique scouting system, as this falls under "strategy." There is also the Judges Award if judges feel the team deserves special recognition for their scouting system.

[Chris is me]

The Scouting Award exists. It's called "Championship Winner".

[Caleb Sykes]

Stay tuned in to CD after championships, I may have something in the works (for the championship level only). No promises though.

[cadandcookies]

I could see a scouting award.

Like a lot of other aspects of teams, there are those that take their scouting to the "next level" in a variety of ways. I remember a team (I think it was Millerbots) at North Star Regional that had a live display of their scouting data in their pit using Tableau at all times. They may not have won the tournament, but they sure had the best scouting by far. I would have loved to see their innovative methods get recognized officially.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

FIRST offers a number of awards, and sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between some of them. Yet there's no recognition of innovative or outstanding scouting approaches.

Originally Posted by Steven Donow

I would love love love this.

Originally Posted by cadandcookies

I could see a scouting award.

OK, so which of you is volunteering to write up the details of how this award is to be judged? We can work out the funding later.

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

So FIRST, what do say??

We are FIRST, you are FIRST. So, what do you say?


.

[AndrewPospeshil]

Personally I think an actual award for scouting would be pointless. Like MechEng83 said, judges would have to be experienced and have a lot of prior knowledge. Plus it would be a nightmare to determine what criteria makes for a good scouting team/strategy. Not to mention it would be mostly the same from year to year. Each game, regardless of how complex/simple/etc requires an easy way to input data, a good way to compile it, etc etc. Although scouting is a vital part of any successful team, it shows itself not through its own award but combines with a good robot to yield results.

However I do think FIRST should be more helpful to scouters. Dependent on seating of course, each event may set aside x number of seats per team for scouts. Of course it may not work like this all the time - 503 had seven or eight people involved in scouting at any one time this season, times even forty teams is way too much - but even a section for scouts would be so helpful. Also, I'm not sure that all or even most teams scout, so that would help to reduce the number of people in the scouting section. Regardless, I think many would agree FIRST should make its match data available for download. It would be so much easier for scouts if they were able to compile data that includes most of the things automatically tracked by FIRST (mostly WLT records, and assist points this year) in combination with scouting observations.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by MechEng83

This would be a nightmare to judge. Judges are recruited from the professional world. Often, they have never seen an FRC competition or know what FIRST is prior to walking into the first judges' meeting. When they judge things like machine design, they're drawing on their knowledge base and generally have a good grasp on mechanical/electrical/computer systems. Other judges are recruited for their expertise in things like business planning or social awareness.

I'm a professional economist. I use many of the methods used in scouting in my daily work. In fact for many in the financial world, this is their daily task. Operations research (for you engineers) uses these techniques as well. If you've seen or read "Moneyball" you've seen good disciplined scouting in action. Both raising the awareness of scouting and recruiting judges from a wider array of technical fields should broaden the appeal of FIRST.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by cadandcookies

I could see a scouting award.

Like a lot of other aspects of teams, there are those that take their scouting to the "next level" in a variety of ways. I remember a team (I think it was Millerbots) at North Star Regional that had a live display of their scouting data in their pit using Tableau at all times. They may not have won the tournament, but they sure had the best scouting by far. I would have loved to see their innovative methods get recognized officially.

1983 Skunkworks similarly used Tableau and has been pushing innovation in their scouting system. 971 has a rigorous successful system too.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

OK, so which of you is volunteering to write up the details of how this award is to be judged? We can work out the funding later.

We are FIRST, you are FIRST. So, what do you say?
.

I will if FIRST decides to create this award.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by AndrewPospeshil

Personally I think an actual award for scouting would be pointless. Like MechEng83 said, judges would have to be experienced and have a lot of prior knowledge. Plus it would be a nightmare to determine what criteria makes for a good scouting team/strategy. Not to mention it would be mostly the same from year to year. Each game, regardless of how complex/simple/etc requires an easy way to input data, a good way to compile it, etc etc. Although scouting is a vital part of any successful team, it shows itself not through its own award but combines with a good robot to yield results.

I don't think this is much different from the Engineering Excellence, Creativity or Innovation in Control Awards. All of those contribute to team success just as much as scouting (unless you think that scouting is EVEN more important, in which I can use that to lord it over our drive coach!!! ) Should we drop those awards because they lead directly to success on the field? Scouting should be put on par with those other critical elements.

Judges don't need to be experienced in scouting--they need to be experienced in strategic development, statistical analysis, data management, information presentation, and team management. All of these are used by real-world professionals. Remember the success of "Moneyball?" That was about how scouting and strategy made more out of the resources a team had. The public "got it" based on how well the movie did.

[Citrus Dad]

BTW, I think a set of potential sponsors are innovative financial investment firms that hire applied math graduates to develop detailed investment models. A whole new population that FIRST has almost no contact with now.