I know at least one team that is at a regional right now that is not competing. They are there just to scout other teams.
Is this advantageous to watch teams that you may or may not be ever competing against? In my experience many teams change their robots up a bit to improve them from one regional to the next. Also, what would knowing what a team does before your regional do to help you?
It’s always good to know a little bit about the teams you’re competing with or against. The more you have seen a robot compete, the better idea you have of their capabilities. We don’t typically send team members to other competitions, but some have gone on their own, and we usually ask them to do some scouting of the teams we’ll see later.
well… I’m not totally sure. Personally, I don’t think it’s important to “Scout” teams that you won’t ever be against.
However, I know that I will be watching the regionals via the webcast this weekend to see how they play out and some of the winning strategys.
Actually, I’d say that the team most likely really isn’t scouting teams but rather just viewing strategys.
I know for a fact they are there scouting teams. Robots, strategy’s, components, alliances… the whole shabazz.
From your input… I know ask the question, is scouting matches in the stadium better than scouting via webcast? Especially since my original statement was how many teams change up their bot if they plan on going to another regional.
Another point I think I should make… if your team is having money troubles, would it be smart to go to a regional and stay in a hotel for 3 nights, while just watching and taking down info?
theres no need to send the whole team to scout
*Originally posted by SharkBite *
**theres no need to send the whole team to scout **
we actualy send everybody that is not in pit or the players station to scout. It goes much quicker that way, ad we can get everythign done with about 20-30 min per person
*Originally posted by Tyler Olds *
**we actualy send everybody that is not in pit or the players station to scout. It goes much quicker that way, ad we can get everythign done with about 20-30 min per person **
That’s about how we run our scouting. Everyone who isn’t doing something else goes out and scouts. This year, we have 5 Pocket PCs, so we’ll be sending people out in groups of two with one PPC each.
Scounting is very important no matter how competetive we are. Sure, scouting lets us know who we’re up against and what we need to do to win. It lets us know who we’re aligned with and what our strategy needs to be going into a match. Scouting also provides a glimpse into the creativity and imagination and engineering that went into the machines that we scout. It lets us see the team structures and organization and things that work or don’t work with regards to these. It provides us with ideas that we can incorporate into our own teams or our future robots in order to keep making what we do better.
Yes! Scout away!
Scouting is VERY important
I think scouting is important, but i dont know about going to another regional just to scout teams, if there are a lot of duplicates at your regional and another earlier maybe, but for nationals you never know who is going and what the divisions will be, so i dont see that much of a point in that aspect. Especially since most teams go to the closest regional to them, meaning that the one they would be scouting at isnt too close. I guess if some members of my team wanted to go scout, the more information the better, as long as it doesnt cost too much to send them, or better yet, anything if they pay themselves. Webcasts are good for strategies, but if you are at the match you can find out if bots arent working and thats why they lost or just a new strategy they were trying, being able to talk to the ppl on the team is a major part of important scouting
YOU CAN NEVER DO TOO MUCH SCOUTING!!!
Even if your not against them at any of your regionals, they could still be in your division at nationals, or you could meet them in the finals.
Being at the vent is better than the webcast. If a team has problems in a match, you can always go ask them what happened and how they’re fixing it and what other problems they have had. You can’t get that from a webcast.
Scouting is important. It allows you to develop a soid strategy to hopefully win or at least foil your opponents. Knowing thing like if they have a brake, how good their traction is, etc… are all components of winning the game or at least giving a good shot at it. It is vitial some you don’t, at least break something on your robot. You don’t really want to try to push someone off the ramp if they have their break locked down on it. Or take advantage of where a team has the least traction. Often wheel type along with the drive system is an indication of it.
Our team doesn’t acutally assign people to go to regionals and watch, but there’s been cases of people going. I was giong to go to the western michigan (I think that’s what it’s called…it’s in Grand Rapids) regional and watch the teams that were going to be at nationals, but it snowed. You can get an idea of what you’ll be against because a different area could have come up with an amazing strategy. As for the money issue, it’s better if you don’t send the WHOLE team, or if you just go for a day. (Works best with nearby regionals). What’s nice about individuals giong on their own is they can pay hotel bills and such…
Last year (2003) was the first year our team was even half-decent, so we spent more time focusing on keeping our robot in top condition and scouting got pushed to the wayside. (plus we only had five people-not enough to effectively scout anything!) This year I wrote a scouting info sheet for other teams to fill out, from the perspective of a driver/mechanic. It seemed to work pretty well, and since we’ve improved enough to make semi-finals, it helped to know who we were up again when it mattered.
-Liz
Our team views scouting as a very important procedure and it surprises me how many teams don’t scout.
We use scouting for the following-
almost all our new members spend their first season as scouts. It teaches them how robots work and gives them a chance to critically look at other machines and teams. Several experienced members head the scouting crews and help the newbies learn what to look for.
scouting is the only way to get real information on the abilities of a robot and team. Watching them compete in rounds is best. Many teams “enhance” their abilities when you talk to them. Usually it is more overconfidence than deliberate deception.
But head to head in the arena shows the limitations. Actions speak much louder than words
developing a scouting program allows many more students to be directly involved with the competition. If you think about it, most of the actual play with the machine falls in the hands of a small drive team. Having a scouting program supports that team and includes many more people in the actual game.
I find that photos of robots say a lot more than data. I check out the photo databases daily during the build season to see who has the best ideas and robust designs. We almost always post pictures of our machine and we put the Curse of the Kahuna on those who keep their pix hidden. ; )
Strategy development is often based on knowledge of who you are playing against. Every robot has it’s weakness and only study of your opponent can reveal that. We often develop a number of playing strategies to deal with a variety of opponents.
While we don’t assign people to visit regionals to scout, many of us do watch the live webcasts to see who plays the game how. It is also good entertainment
BTW- pics for alliance partners don’t always depend on scouting info. Sometimes it is just nice to play with friends or folks that really have the spirit of FIRST
To give an idea of how we develop scouts= At a recent off season competition we gave the scouting job to a crew of all newbies and set them loose on the pits. Their job was to make the choices for our alliance partners for the picking of the finals. Nobody was going to do much to help them.
It turned out we seeded 1st and got first pick. It was the choice of the newbies we went with. They felt like they were a part of the action and we got some valuable training in. It didn’t matter the outcome of the day. It did matter that our new members got involved for the season and were ready for the coming months.
(BTW- we were eliminated due to our own mechanical problems- proving that you can’t win all the time. We did our best and thats what counts.)
WC:cool:
I always keep my eye on scouting threads and I too am amazed at how some teams feel it is unimportant. The process 103 uses is very similar to what Wayne described with 25. About 20 of our current 33 student members are experienced in the scouting process. Five our our students (drive team, human player, and two head scouts) make up the strategy group that collect data from individual scouts and work directly on strategy with alliance partners. This Saturday at Ramp Riot, our new scouts will be trained. So far this year, we’ve held two scouting meetings for the sole purpose of ensuring success and commitment from our new people.
Our team, in my knowledge, has never been big on scouting. Most likely becuase weve been too busy beating our bot back into shape.
I was wondering what you guys look for and some of the questions you ask when your teams go around.
Our team is definately big on scouting. Last year, Ursula, one of our mentors, made up these elaborate scouting sheets. One of the most important things that I’ve found is scouting is to make sure to remember to only take what other teams say about their robot and its capabilitys as about half true. Our team watched our competitors during the time that our team wasn’t competing. Each team (we had people work in groups of two just in case multiple were on the field at once) was given a section of team numbers (700-800 for instance) and if a team in this range came onto the playing field. If a team looked ecceptionally good after multiple scouts, the team would be approached and then stats would be requested from them.
Over the past few years, our team has attempted to go scouting electronically w/ Excel and some other methods, but in the end it just ended up becoming a hassle. This year, I think we’re going to go back to basics a little and just go w/ the old paper and pen method, and also taking a picture of every robot at the competition to make a posterboard for easy reference. We’ll see how it works out, but last year I headed up scouting and everything worked fine by having 2 or 3 people and myself going around w/ pen and paper asking teams questions. 