I have never seen any real need for pit scouting question and find them many time annoying. I thought it would be fun to make a list of questions you don’t like, or unusual ones you have heard.
Short list of questions I hate:
How fast are you? my answer is always ludicrous speed
How many wheels do you have? Really?
What can your robot do? my usual answer is - fly.
Last year, I heard: would you be willing to cheesecake?
No, I would not. We have planned our own strategy and a perfectly fine robot, thanks.
The only question I like to hear in regards to Pit scouting is “Can i take a picture of your robot?”
General interest questions to learn more about the robot are always welcome.
But having a line of people waiting with pen and paper to ask questions that they would better be served watching on the field is a waste of everyone’s time and a safety hazard as the pits are crowded enough of people just looking around.
“How many wheels do you have?” I usually tell the kids to take a look and make sure we didn’t forget any. It’s also fun to ask the same question back to them and see how they respond.
I always love it when kids ask how fast you do something after they just found out it was your first event for the season. I typically tell them to time us in our first match, and hopefully it will keep getting better.
“How tall is your robot”
scribbles down notes
“How wide is your robot”
scribbles down notes
“How long is your robot”
scribbles down notes
“Thank you!”
Walks away
Student in the pit with me: Those numbers weren’t right.
Me: I know.
Last year I honestly considered talking to my team about having a QR code linked to a document with all the questions you normally see. Either way favorite question is.
“What does your robot do?”
The reply from me generally is.
“dunno”
can confirm- I scouted you at crossroads 2014.
One of our alums was in our pit while someone was pit scouting us, and his answer to this question was “like, 30” and the scouter just walked away. He apparently thought that meant total number of wheels on the entire robot. I will admit, our pit scouting questionnaire last year was about 25 questions long, and it was purely because I wanted lots of ways to sort the data… not that we actually used more than 5 of those questions the entire season. Apparently my pit scouter liked spending so much time talking to the teams, though, so at least she was enjoying herself.
My favorite one is always “what is your strategy?” It’s whatever makes sense for that match! Our strategy is to sit on top of the rock wall, for the entire match. Not because we’re stuck, but because the robot likes the view.
IMO I find pit scouting to be important for the first few matches because you don’t have accurate match scouting data. But after about thirty matches have gone by if you are still pit scouting there is really no need except to take pictures and find our fear ratios for how they would do in defense
My team has never, not once, used results from pit scouting for anything - the results you get from that never match up with the actual results from the field!
That said, it’s a highly useful tool for us to use to force students to get out there and mingle, and learn a little about other robots!
This year might be a little different, though… asking teams which defenses they can handle (with appropriate followup questions to understand how they actually handle each defense) could be very useful, at least in the beginning. And depending on how things go, you may or may not see a team even attempt one or more specific defenses for the entire qual matches! Either the defense won’t be on the field for some matches, or one of their alliance members will do it, or they’ll tackle other ones first and get their RP without needing to touch it. It could be very interesting to see how that goes!
We put together a trifold flyer with the most common questions answered and hand it to them if no one was available to talk. Otherwise we try to oblige them. No need to be nasty or condescending gracious profesionalism right
I am pretty disappointed with most of the answers here. To be honest, my team does take a serious note when it comes to Pit Scouting - and we make certain to prep our Pit Team for the questions.
We are a team that has needed much from our competitors, and we truly rely on our Pit team to find these answers/help. We also try to aid other teams via Pit Scouting.
I may be taking this ‘scouting thing’ a bit differently than the rest of the responders, but here is what we try to do:
We actually glean info from the Pit scouting. Ask the right questions and you can get the right answers.
My team finds inspiration for our next season in what the other teams are doing in the off season.
Gauge a level of awareness of the ‘whole’ team. Kids are honest - and they will tell you some awesome and amazing stories about their teams!
Find out what teams are making a big splash.
Infer how teams will pick in the alliance selection. This was a great help in 2014 at the MSHSL tournament. We knew our ‘fate’ before the No. 1 Alliance Captain announced it. We adjusted accordingly. From 2530’s video’s you can hear the confusion of alliance selection (listen close at the :48 sec mark). As you can tell, our Captain (Ginger Power) didn’t hesitate as we already ‘knew’ we were not going to be picked by 2175. We put together the alliance that we knew would be the best to knock off the other two returning champs.
To get to know the other teams. This is about the kids competing AND celebrating their accomplishments.
The Pit team likes to brag up the robot - let them have at it!
“On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your bumper quality?”… because that’s somehow relevant information…
Pit scouting is useful for the things you can’t figure out from watching the robot on the field. How mechanisms work and things of that nature. It could also be important this year for robot dimensions - have to make sure all 3 robots can fit while climbing.
If only teams would use pit scouting efficiently…
Or effectively… Ginger Power - we don’t agree on much 
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I like to collect some information about the drive team, like who their coach is (mentor or student), how much practice time they’ve had with their drive configuration, etc. Our team always has student coaches, so if our alliance partner’s coaches are mentors, we’ll send an adult with our team to talk strategy so our student coach doesn’t get steamrolled over an adult coach with say…an abrasive personality. We’re going to make sure our coach’s voice is heard.
Gauging bumper quality is very important; it’s strongly correlated with robot performance. But I wouldn’t ask a team to rate their own bumper quality…
I’m not sure which team asked you that but never cheesecake a robot that finishes in 2nd in Archimedes (unless 1023 asked you to add canburglars)
The biggest reason for pit scouting is for early qualification matches and pictures. The bigger “powerhouse” teams probably use it for cheese caking. We like to strategize with teams before qualification matches but I’m not sure if we really ever used the pit scouting data for that. Since we are in such a small district, It is only truly helpful the first two events. Then we usually can figure out what teams can do later in the day and the pit scouting data isn’t very important. Pictures are just about the only good thing for pit scouting. I remember referring to robots by descriptions like “the purple robot” and pictures would have been really helpful.
At champs last year I went to every* team in Hopper and asked them 2 or 3 questions. “how much do you weigh”, if the answer to the weight was really close to 120 i asked if they could remove any weight. and “if i give you something to put on your robot would you put it on?” Which is basically asking if teams are willing to be cheesecaked but i wanted the teams to really think about what I was asking.
I did this all while not wearing a 2826 shirt to get honest answers. Every team that the question was asked seriously to (see below) that said no to being cheesecaked was automatically removed from consideration if they didn’t have elite level can burglars.
I’m not saying that cheesecaking will happen to the degree it had last year. I’m just pointing out that teams should honestly consider having it done to their robot after an honest and humble review of their robots capabilites (which by Championships should be blatantly obvious)
And no I’m not saying that you were incorrect in saying no flat out, I’m just adding more to the conversation of teams who say no but really should say yes.
*Yes I asked 987 and 33 and 948 and etc even though I new the answer would be no.
Some of the responses in this thread more than disappoint me. They disgust me.
If a student approaches your pit with a part they needed machined or a wire they needed soldered, do you ridicule them? Give them false information and send them on their way? Nudge their elbow while they use your band saw?
If a scouter asks a question with an easily-observed answer, I invite them into our pit to take a closer look at the robot. If the pit is too busy at the moment, I invite them to return at a better time.
If a scouter asks a question that seems irrelevant to me, I look for the logic behind the question and answer it as fully as I can.
I train my scouters to introduce themselves and ask for the chance to view the robot. We have a set of desirable data that is infeasible to collect during matches, so that is their focus.
Our scouters are also trained to find teams in need of help. If they have no autonomous, ask if we can send a programmer over to try to get something going. If they are have nothing but a pile of parts and the only mentor who showed up was their teacher (who happens to teach English), can we send over some of our mechanical and electrical people to help out? (true story)
I sincerely hope some of you reassess your outlook in this area. If you feel you are getting useless data, ask better questions and train your scouters better. Scouters are the eyes and ears of your teams.
Be the change you wish to see in the world.
No, and this is a horrible comparison.
We also answer all pit scouting questions honestly and don’t give useless info.
However we don’t pit scout for many of the reasons posted here.
We have a sub team at comps whose sole purpose is to go to teams and ask them if they need help and find ways to provide it. Either through us or another team. We don’t need our scouters to do this.