Sharing information - not a good idea?

[blaze8902]

The team I work with has always been far more concerned with facilitating the long term success of the students in the area in a sustainable manner. Our priorities lie in helping everyone we can to achieve their potential.

That said, we care more about helping other teams grow by sharing our designs and resources, and increasing our own success through cooperation with our alliance.

This year we plan on continuing our tradition of maintaining as high a level of transparency as is feasible.

I know many other teams have a different, more competitive, philosophy that differs from our focus on cooperation and provision of resources and information.

To each their own, as long as students are learning and having fun you can approach FIRST however you like, but I believe this year we will maintain transparency.

As a side note, I do find it interesting that our method of pit scouting differs from a few teams who have spoken up in this thread. Rather than newer students, we generally have a mix of students who scout. We like to have mechanically experienced students teach others how to identify a robots capabilities visually, with a focus on asking other teams how their mechanisms work and what design decisions they made. We've found this to be more informative and educational on several fronts.

[Chief Hedgehog]

I really think that Pit-Scouting is more about gaining the general 'feel' of a team. Most of the scouting (at least the best info) comes from scouting teams on the field.

[blaze8902]

Agreed. If anything it's an opportunity to figure out what we're going to look out for in the stands.

Speaking with the students and looking at their robots is more of a learning experience than something used in the match.

That said, definitives like "can it shoot" or "What kind of drive train does it use?" can be answered, while questions like "How well does it say shoot?" is best saved for the stands.

[jajabinx124]

Originally Posted by Chief Hedgehog

I really think that Pit-Scouting is more about gaining the general 'feel' of a team. Most of the scouting (at least the best info) comes from scouting teams on the field.

To me pit scouting is more about getting data that stand scouting can't collect, but yes the "best" or most useful information comes from stand scouting.

[alextried]

Originally Posted by Ian Curtis

I don't think the answers to pit scouting questions have ever been particularly well correlated with robot ability. It seems the way psychology works your best match somehow becomes what you remember as average. Folks don't do it to be devious, they just honestly don't know how well their robot actually performs.

What happens on the field is the truth, everything else is subject to be Best Available Data.

Absolutely. A robot may perform better or worse than the pit/drive team anticipate on the field, and data you personally collect tends to be more accurate than what a team may tell you in the pit (not usually their fault). This is true every year. Personally, I like to speak to every team anyway, whether or not we are in a future match with or against them, because even if we never play together our robots and drive teams may complement each other enough to form a successful alliance in playoffs.

[abigailthefox]

Originally Posted by Ian Curtis

I don't think the answers to pit scouting questions have ever been particularly well correlated with robot ability. It seems the way psychology works your best match somehow becomes what you remember as average. Folks don't do it to be devious, they just honestly don't know how well their robot actually performs.

What happens on the field is the truth, everything else is subject to be Best Available Data.

Pit scouting is never very useful...
"Oh yeah, we can make two six stacks! And cap them!"
*match data indicates 1 5-stack on a good day...*

Honestly, it's in the spirit of FIRST to cooperate, and at the end of the day, teams want to be chosen for good alliances, so they'll probably talk up their abilities at least a little. Withholding everything does make you a little overly competitive/borderline paranoid, and honestly when it comes to alliance selection, unless you're a very strong team, it will hurt you more than help you.

[bjtheone]

Originally Posted by bduddy

In past FRC games, most teams have shared information about their own robots fairly freely with other teams, both to assist scouting and just as a general courtesy. However, in this game, alliances have a direct ability, through choosing defenses, to affect how difficult it is for the other alliance to gain points. Therefore, if I was in the pits and heard "What defenses can your robot cross?" or even "What does that arm do?" early on Friday, I'd think twice before answering... especially if I glanced at the schedule and saw that the team asking was a future opponent.

Any thoughts? Am I just overly competitive, or is this going to be a real issue?

This is true every year. It is just that this year has a direct opportunity to use this information against you in a easy and direct way(pick a defence you cannot cross). On the flip side this information can be used to plan game strategy, and alliance partner picking, which may be more important (ie. we can cross A & B and might look for robots capable of C & D, if breaching was part of our game strategy).

We for sure, and I suspect most other teams, scout for information to plan how to play with, and how to play against teams. In the qualification round you are going to play with and against most teams. More importantly in the elimination round unless you are an alliance captain, pit scouting interaction can play significant role in getting selected.

Plus, an examination of you robot will tell a lot about your capabilities anyways.

We always answer questions to the best of our abilities.

[hardcopi]

My guess is that we will end up just being totally up front. Not telling the truth will only help in your first few matches, then the cat will be out of the bag. If you don't tell the truth then besides not being GP it will also make them less likely to pick you if they can't trust you.

Now I might be saying that because it is still early enough in the build season that we are planning on being able to go through any obstacle. I might be singing a significantly different tune come bag day.

[EricLeifermann]

Only question 2826 asks in the pit when it comes to scouting is, "Can I take a picture of your robot?".

Last year we also asked if teams were willing to be cheesecaked but only at champs did we ask that.

Teams are going to tell you what they designed their robot to do not what it actually does. On field performance is all that matters to us. So you might not be willing to say what defenses your robot can cross in the pits but you'll tell me every match you're in anyways.

[philso]

Originally Posted by bduddy

In past FRC games, most teams have shared information about their own robots fairly freely with other teams, both to assist scouting and just as a general courtesy. However, in this game, alliances have a direct ability, through choosing defenses, to affect how difficult it is for the other alliance to gain points. Therefore, if I was in the pits and heard "What defenses can your robot cross?" or even "What does that arm do?" early on Friday, I'd think twice before answering... especially if I glanced at the schedule and saw that the team asking was a future opponent.

Any thoughts? Am I just overly competitive, or is this going to be a real issue?

I don't feel that this year is any different from previous years. What people are sharing are concepts, not detailed design drawings and code. For example, in 2013, many people emulated the concept of the small-wheel shooter. Some were very successful. Some were not successful.

Originally Posted by EricLeifermann

Only question 2826 asks in the pit when it comes to scouting is, "Can I take a picture of tour robot?".

Last year we also asked if teams were willing to be cheesecaked but only at champs did we ask that.

Teams are going to tell you what they designed their robot to do not what it actually does. On field performance is all that matters to us. So you might not be willing to say what defenses your robot can cross in the pits but you'll tell me every match you're in anyways.

My older son used to use his commanding presence and asked some teams "what are your robot's weaknesses?" The funny thing is that most of them made an honest effort to answer (maybe not accurately, as Eric notes).

[sclancy1647]

In my personal opinion, it is always helpful to know your own strengths and weaknesses. Especially if your are in a competition with say 2-3 powerhouse teams, they want someone who can complement them or their strategy. I would still be giving out as much information as possible, to not only help others, but to help yourself.

Sean Clancy
Iron Devils Robotics FRC team 1647
Drive Coach and Management team lead

[courtney.john28]

At first glance I had the same thought, because unless you can flawlessly complete all the defenses, your opponents will always choose your weakest defense. But I also remembered last year's litter agreement, which was essentially working together to get a higher score for both alliances. This year I think alliances should work similarly so they can get the 2 ranking points. Because if two teams work together so that they both get the extra two points then the worst point value you can get is 2 rp's and the highest is 4 rp's (assuming the plan goes succesfully)

[MrJohnston]

I'll answer this based on what I'd be willing to share - and when - to meet the needs of our team....

* I figure that, right now, I'll share very little. We have a lot of functionality decisions to finalize yet, so that it's not likely that I could be accurate anyhow. Besides, if we come up with an especially clever idea we'd rather keep it quiet until other teams are far enough into the design process to mimic it. What would I share now? It looks like our primary purpose will be to damage defenses. We've also agreed that we'll be able to acquire a boulder and have room on the bot to put stickers for our sponsors. Everything else is on the table as we need to do some rough prototyping to see what combinations of options are available.

* Around week 4, it will be too late for most/all teams to completely change their designs and actually create a strong robot. Those with that capability will likely already have something as good as our bot (or better) anyhow.... So, I'd share the general concepts of what we can do and likely share some specifics. However, I'd keep a few things under wraps - such as which defenses we can most/least effectively damage.

* We aim to win our first district event. I'm certain we can be a team captain and will be in a position to do the choosing. So, we won't have to worry much about advertising our abilities. So, we'll share, throughout, information about our general functions, yet have some things kept quiet. (We typically have multiple autonomous routines, for instance. One is our "go-to" that we anticipate using most of the time. The others will be used in specialized situations - or when we need to do something unexpected.) Most years, we have a routine or two we never use. When we've been to Champs, we've had routines we've used for the very first time in eliminations.

* After our first district event, we'll be much more open. Teams that are really competitive will have already studied the videos on what we can/cannot do. Teams that are less competitive, well, are less competitive. Sharing openly with them, will help them the following season. Of course, we might have some functions that we are still keeping quiet at this point.


* NW Champs or Worlds? It will really depend on our self-assessment on how we stack up against everybody else.....

[evanperryg]

Originally Posted by bduddy

In past FRC games, most teams have shared information about their own robots fairly freely with other teams, both to assist scouting and just as a general courtesy. However, in this game, alliances have a direct ability, through choosing defenses, to affect how difficult it is for the other alliance to gain points. Therefore, if I was in the pits and heard "What defenses can your robot cross?" or even "What does that arm do?" early on Friday, I'd think twice before answering... especially if I glanced at the schedule and saw that the team asking was a future opponent.

Any thoughts? Am I just overly competitive, or is this going to be a real issue?

On my team, pit scouting data is really only used as a filter on the quantitative data. Since we'll also be tracking what defenses teams actually cross in their matches, we'll be picking defenses that team struggles with, regardless of what that team tells the pit scouters.

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by bduddy

In past FRC games, most teams have shared information about their own robots fairly freely with other teams, both to assist scouting and just as a general courtesy. However, in this game, alliances have a direct ability, through choosing defenses, to affect how difficult it is for the other alliance to gain points. Therefore, if I was in the pits and heard "What defenses can your robot cross?" or even "What does that arm do?" early on Friday, I'd think twice before answering... especially if I glanced at the schedule and saw that the team asking was a future opponent.

Any thoughts? Am I just overly competitive, or is this going to be a real issue?

We've found pre-scouting to be a waste of time, except for taking pictures. Often teams inflate their own abilities or give inaccurate statements. That's not a negative on teams: it's just that they see that they completed some task in practice and decide they can do it in a real match. Or sometimes they just have a overly optimistic view of how good their robot might be.

If they don't do it in a match, then we assume they can't do it. Unless it's a team you know well and who has proven to be trustworthy in assessing their own abilities.