Lack of passion in scouting

[Tri_Lam]

scouting is going to be hard for my team we only have like 3 serious members actully going and if lucky tehre will be 4 of us there. if we had atleast two more we can get a photo/camera guy taking video recordings of the game while in play becaus ei know for a fact all 3 of us will be on the field our club pres as driver v-pres other driver n me human player......... just saying u guys got it lucky i notice most teams contain atleast 7 people i went to the lv regional last year one team had a grip or members. humm i think im just jabbering now -_-

W/e GOOD LUCK ALL

[cziggy343]

Originally Posted by FreedomForce

no, im referring to the kid writing that down WITHOUT asking the team. btw:
thanks, and nice job at VCU, i was rooting for you guys (we teamed up at palmetto in 04 and at Florida in 05)

im still doing that spreadsheet, here is another funny one

Number of wheels: ? or left blank,

thats how it is on at least half of them.

ah, yeah, i dont do that either.
and thanks, we like people rooting for us.
and i remember us with yall at palmetto and florida. yall were great.

[AdamHeard]

There was a scout at La who asked how many gears our drivetrain had.

I replied "Well, we have 3 gears in each side... Are you sure you don't mean speed because it is a single speed drivetrain"

To which he replies "Nope, it says gears". He then proceeds to write 3 down.

Later on a member of that team came and asked my how and why we had a 3 speed shifting transmission rather than a 2 or 4.

[Rich Ross]

Just to give heart to the scouts out there. You scouts WILL be the difference on your team. When you scout matches and that data is successfully complied, it helps you pick well, or if you arent ranked it helps you see what the better teams are doing.

My Scouts did a really nice job and i hope yours will too. Don't look at scouting as a chore, because its not. I scouted a bunch, and i enjoyed every minute of it.

[Lisa Perez]

If you have the amount of people, but there seems to be a lack of interest, make shifts within a designated scouting group, so that those scouts know that they have a job to get done, but are also given the chance to take a break from sitting that long. You'll get a lot more response from someone whose shift is 1 hour as opposed to 6 hours.

As applies for any other subteam, it helps a lot to have one or two students completely enthusiastic and willing to lead the scouting group to begin with, because the scouts will look up to their peers (as opposed to what they will do if they are just told to record information).

Ask your scouts to pretend they are creating strategy for a sporting event. Chances are, they'll have a better idea of what needs to be recorded. I know that when I was new to my team in high school, I had no idea what scouting was. If I had been able to make a parallel between robotics and sports, I would have been MUCH better as a scout.

It might even help to point out where scouting helped your driveteam make decisions in matches: "Hey, we played defense on that robot there because that's where they typically score from, and look how well our alliance did", etc. etc. It'll show those scouts that their work really did pay off, and will help them to be proud of their work.

[cziggy343]

Originally Posted by Rich Ross

Just to give heart to the scouts out there. You scouts WILL be the difference on your team. When you scout matches and that data is successfully complied, it helps you pick well, or if you arent ranked it helps you see what the better teams are doing.

My Scouts did a really nice job and i hope yours will too. Don't look at scouting as a chore, because its not. I scouted a bunch, and i enjoyed every minute of it.

i no that scouting is important on our team. being the main student scouter, i got to be the representative . and i got to speak into a microphone and say a big word like "graciously"

[Kims Robot]

Another thought is to find a way to make scouting more fun...

We do both Pit & Match scouting (although echoing others here, match scouting gets more weight than pit... anyone can say they can score 20 tubes in a match, to see them do it is another).

Our pit scouting was developed by one of our mentors who knows labview really well, and he created this really awesome GUI with the help of our strategy/drive team. In a way, it makes scouting fun They have a visual way to add tubes to the rack, they can type in notes on teams, and indicate extra points, penalties etc, all through a computer interface. In the end, they hit submit, and we can pull from a master database all the information about exactly what the team did during the match. (look for this to be released for other teams to use soon - almost done working out kinks).

Pit scouting is a good way for students to see other teams, perhaps they dont know everything about every robot in existance, but I have to echo Ben's thoughts here... help them LEARN. This is not about being the best at everything you do, its about learning. Maybe they dont seem to care because they dont understand, or maybe their passion is animation and they are just trying to help out the team. Who knows... take a minute, and educate instead of getting frustrated.

[cire]

Some kid at GLR came to scout our team and he asked me if i could "fill out this sheet" for him. I told him he's gona have to at least ask me the questions himself, or I wont fill it out at all.

Another thing that bugged me related to scouting is that the students on my team constantly pointed all of the scouts to me, even ones that were at almost every single build meeting. This disappointed me. I know they knew the answers, but maybe they werent sure on exact details or didnt want to be sociable.

Hopefully it wont be a problem at the championships!

[Ben Piecuch]

You may think that scouting is a commonplace term within a robotics team. But years ago, scouting wasn't all that big of a deal. With only a few hundred teams across the country, you knew exactly who did what, how they did it, and when they were going to do it. Now, maybe my memory is going as I get older, but I think it has to do more with the fact that there are MANY more teams now, and the regionals keep getting bigger and bigger. Teams SHOULD have a scouting group, and a knowledgable one at that. But, it still hasn't found its way into every program.

Please, it's better to educate than to ridicule. If you know more about their scouting sheet then they do, take a minute to explain what 6wd or 2x12" means. In the end, it'll help both of you out...

I am MORE than happy when other students come to look at and learn about our robot. I bring them over and have them stand right in front of the robot. Now, saying that, I do have to laugh at scouts who ask the most basic questions about our robot, when all they have to do is look at it. Particularly ones like:
"Does your robot have an arm?"
"How many wheels does your robot have?"
"How high do your ramps lift?" [we have no ramps...]

BEN

[1596guy]

Originally Posted by Ben Piecuch

Particularly ones like:
"Does your robot have an arm?"
"How many wheels does your robot have?"
"How high do your ramps lift?" [we have no ramps...]

BEN

Today, we were working on our ramp, which we might just chop off, and a scout comes up and starts asking us questions. The second question out of his mouth was "Do you have a ramp?"

I think the only solution is, like many have already said, is to have only those who have passion, scout. Our scout captain is very clear that if you don't want to scout, you will not scout.

[AznPrincess3089]

I have to agree. One team came up to our pits during LA regional and didnt even know what the autonomous mode was! I'm doing prescouting for Silicon Valley Regional so if any teams going there want to PM me so I could ask some questions about their robot, please do. I think the drivers, whenever they could should do scouting, because they're the ones who are going to have to integrate the information during matches.

[Brandon Holley]

Coming from a kid who started as a scout, you have to understand that not every scout is the same as you.

Whoever mentioned the "3 gears" thing...think about that from THAT kids perspective. He's told he has an important job to do...he is to go out adn collect information on all the teams that are at this regional, and this information is going to be used to form strategies. They tell him, go out and ask teams these exact questions on this sheet and write down their answers.

To the kid that wrote the scout sheet "gears" makes sense...its a term used all the time to name the "speeds" of cars and other things. To the kid reading it, he may not know what it means...to you, you hear "gear" and think of the spurred tooth friend found in 99% of drivetrains and offer your response of 3 per side. Who is at fault in this situation??? No one, your as much to blame/not blame as the kid who is writing down the information, and the kid who wrote the scout sheet.

Please be understanding of the kids that come down to ask your questions. They may not be as passionate about scouting, or even robotics as you are, but if they seriously dont know what somethign on their own scout sheet means, than explain it to them. Maybe them seeing they can actually learn a lot will spark that passion. It can be very intimidating to join a club where it appears everyone around you has an abundant amount of information about robots. Some kids may shy away because they feel they can never reach that level.

Respect the scouts, respect each other, and most of all help them learn, and I bet you may learn something yourself...

[Graham Donaldson]

One of the biggest problems I see (I'm unofficial head scout/strategist) with our scouts is the lack of enthusiasm. They're told to sit there and watch a robot. Essentially, they say, "I don't care, I'm not going to do this." We've tried to make it easier for them (intranet-based databases on laptops, forms that make it really easy for them to know what they have to do, etc...), but they still blow it off. So I pose this question, because I haven't figured out the answer yet: How do you "inspire" your scouts? How do you get them excited about it? How do you focus them? We bring our entire team (~35-40 people) to NJ. ~10-15 are down in the pits at any one time. So, we have 20-25 people available, and we only need 6 at a time, but I sometimes have trouble finding people. Everyone runs when I see them, or says "I just got here, gimme a break", or "I just did it", or "I'm going in like 5 minutes". How does everyone get their scouts interested in what they're doing?

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by robotcanuck1676

One of the biggest problems I see (I'm unofficial head scout/strategist) with our scouts is the lack of enthusiasm. They're told to sit there and watch a robot. Essentially, they say, "I don't care, I'm not going to do this." We've tried to make it easier for them (intranet-based databases on laptops, forms that make it really easy for them to know what they have to do, etc...), but they still blow it off. So I pose this question, because I haven't figured out the answer yet: How do you "inspire" your scouts? How do you get them excited about it? How do you focus them? We bring our entire team (~35-40 people) to NJ. ~10-15 are down in the pits at any one time. So, we have 20-25 people available, and we only need 6 at a time, but I sometimes have trouble finding people. Everyone runs when I see them, or says "I just got here, gimme a break", or "I just did it", or "I'm going in like 5 minutes". How does everyone get their scouts interested in what they're doing?

The inspiration comes as a general team attitude. My old team (11-MORT) became very large in the 4 years I was there. By the time I was a junior there was no way we could fit even a quarter of our team in the pits. When you have that many people not directly hands on with the robot, you have to get them something to do, something they will ENJOY doing.

My sophomore year of high school was the game known as stack attack. I was the human player of my team so I was in the pit. A couple of other kids in my grade decided they wanted to get involved so they grabbed pieces of paper and started scouting the pits. Eventually more people joined in. By the time we got to nationals we had a solid scouting database going.

The next year...we go to NJ, now our team is getting quite large. The same guys decide to head up the scouting team again, but this time theyre going to recruit a few of their friends to help them out. All it takes is 1-2 people that are passionate to get scouting going.

I didn't spend a lot of time scouting because of human playering/coaching/driving the robot and being in the pit...but the few times I did, i cant tell you how much fun we had. Everyone would be in the stands laughing, telling jokes, sharing stories, and SCOUTING. Eventually scouting became THE thing to do at competitions, and our team started doing a lot better, the robot was performing beautifully.

Lead by example....show people that scouting can be fun, and is possibly the most important thign you can do at a competition. From a coaching standpoint, I can tell you...the coach is NOTHING without valuable scout information. If the coach is nothing, the robot is NOTHING. It all starts from teh scouts...get your kids to see this.



Pascack rules!

[JBotAlan]

Originally Posted by robotcanuck1676

Essentially, they say, "I don't care, I'm not going to do this."

You know, this is a great point. I don't...really have an answer for this...

I would need to talk to one of these kids and ask them why they are on the team at all to figure out what I need to appeal to. I'll try this tonight if I can get my mentor off my back long enough (I've got loads of software to re-write and we're taking a fix-it tonight, so I need to get to work ) so I can talk to some of these kids.

I do want to say that I am not trying to ridicule scouts. I know that many are forced to do their job (and that's partially why I created this thread) and that it isn't much fun for some. I try to help out scouts. But one of the points I want to make is that a 1-5 form is pretty much strategically useless, IMHO, and the other point is that without a little bit of education, a scout can be misled by a team's responses--not something the head of strategy wants when choosing someone to pick.

JBot

PS: I'll post back if I get a glimpse into the heads of the not-so-eager scouts tonight.