Hello! My team wants to try to do some qualitative/subjective scouting, for i think the first time ever this season, but i’m not sure how to do it in a way that A) is easy to organize and B) doesn’t tire people out. I’m thinking of having 2-3 qualitative scouts (i think that’s all we can do atm) but competitions are really long and scouting is pretty tedious, so I want to be able to switch them out. How do your teams switch out scouting for “super scouts”, and how do you train them?
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Glad you are thinking about this. And before comp.
I have found working backwards from the natural breaks of the event to be a good starting point (i.e. split morning into first half and last half, after lunch into 3 sessions, etc)
I would go by match numbers NOT wall clock time.
I think there are a few people with spreadsheets on here to auto gen scouting schedule.
I have a tool or two that may be of help for the actual data analysis, I will try to remember to ping you when I announce it. But one of its use cases is for just your situation, qualitative with low scout numbers.
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Agreed about basing your schedule off of a number of matches and not time. Rotating every 5 matches seems to work; it’s what Refs do, too!
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I would reach out to some others teams at your events that might be scouting. It is very common to have teams working together to spread the load of scouting and sharing the raw data at a minimum. As a new team to scouting, it may also give you a chance to learn from some more experienced teams.
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oh i should clarify- we already scout quantitatively, so we have some experience, just not with subjective data
This is an interesting idea. We don’t really clearly divide super scouters and regular scouters but our scouting captain does know who is going to produce better data, especially by our second competition. Usually we divide up the people attending but not assigned elsewhere to an equal amount of matches randomly sorted. This spreads everyone out but no one is assigned to a specific team or alliance slot. For clarification on this we divide people into slots of like 3-5 matches in a row before they switch. They are not changing out every single match.
The captain each match will communicate which scouter is covering which team. They use their discretion here to assign the scouters who produce more reliable data on teams that seem like they are worth paying the most attention to. In any given match you will probably have 1-4 teams that will be in playoff contention and 2 that won’t make the cut based on FIM anyways. 24 teams in playoffs ~40 teams per district event.
Definitely a “gut feel” subjective opinion is used by the scouting captain in this regard. They may recognize a number and assume they will be good based on previous performance or historical data. It could be looking at the bot in the field and seeing 3 with high goal shooters and two defense only bots. Obviously the high goal shooters might need more attention.
Edit: I explained our system to ChatGPT and asked it to try and explain it better and give an example with 10 scouters for 80 matches.
ChatGPT Answer
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Divide the Matches into Blocks: With 80 matches, you can create blocks of matches. For instance, 8 blocks of 10 matches each would work well. This ensures scouters stay in the same group for a block of time.
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Group the Scouters: Divide the 10 scouters into two groups of 5. Each group can cover all 6 teams, with some scouters taking notes on multiple teams per match if necessary.
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Assign Teams to Scouters: Within each group, assign specific teams to scouters. For example, in a group of 5, three scouters can cover one team each, and the other two can cover two teams each.
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Rotate Scouters Between Matches: To ensure equal workload and variety, scouters can rotate their team assignments after each block of matches.
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Schedule Breaks: Include breaks for scouters, especially if the matches are spread out over a long day or multiple days.
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Overlap Between Groups: Have an overlap between the two groups during the transition between blocks to ensure consistency in data collection and handover of information.
Here’s an example of how the scouting slots could be structured:
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Block 1-8 (Each Block = 10 Matches)
- Group A (Scouters 1-5)
- Matches 1-10, 21-30, 41-50, 61-70
- Group B (Scouters 6-10)
- Matches 11-20, 31-40, 51-60, 71-80
- Group A (Scouters 1-5)
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Team Assignments:
- In each block, scouters are assigned specific teams. Rotate these assignments every block to ensure even distribution of workload.
This schedule allows for each scouter to cover 40 matches, ensuring an even distribution of workload. The grouping and block system provides consistency and eases the management of scouting data.
Agree with the advice to rotate after a certain number of matches. We shoot for 5-6 and try to get even shifts divided by natural breaks like lunch.
I consider training qualitative scouts difficult. Trying to give someone a feel for what is important to note and what is low value is not straightforward. One group of students who likely has developed some of that sense is the drive team. However, once they get into the drive role, the next thing they often do is graduate. Getting ex-drivers to come back to help the team as super scouts is one way to try to address this need. They would need to be available for events, but having Fridays off (or being able to take one off here or there) from college or a job is often do-able. Many wish they could come back to help the team, but find mentoring too large of a load. Participating in a few calibration discussions on scouting strategy and then attending competitions could be a right-sized way for them to engage.
As for training current student team members to be super scouts, I don’t have a handy guide or anything like that. Perhaps others will jump in with some concrete ideas.
We scout in either 30 or 45 minute shifts.
It allows breaks to be timed rather than trying to keep track of the number of matches that have passed.
This also helps when there is a field fault/ timeout (we’ve all been in competitions where the field is down for 10 to 45 minutes).
The bottom line is use what is best for your team.
Contact us by email off our website at citruscircuits.org and our scouting managers can answer your questions.
Thank you for reaching out!
For our objective scouts we have them rotate in 45 minute to hour and a half intervals depending on numbers. For our subjective scouts we tend to give them a lot more freedom in deciding their own breaks. We have three subjective scouts at a competition, and only two of them are working at a time. While they generally start out doing two or three hour long shifts during the first competition, because we almost always have the same subjective scouts throughout the season they end up setting a lot of their own breaks near the end. If they all get along well together, and there are a small number of them, allowing them to set their own breaks can be better and more enjoyable for them while also getting you the same level of data. Even if you don’t let them set their own breaks, when working with a much smaller group of scouts it can be good to be much more flexible than shifts based purely on time or match numbers can allow.
As for training, we will have all of our scouts watch match videos together and practice scouting them. This is the same for our subjective scouts, but for them we will also have one of our strategy mentors watching with them. Our mentor will go over with them what kind of things to look for and teach them how to objectively rate different teams.
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My teams don’t distinguish between super-scouters and regular scouts, but hopefully this will still be helpful.
When I coached FRC a couple years ago, we developed a system of shifts that allowed scouts to spend some of their time in other competition roles (drive team, media, etc). We typically broke up the first two days into three chunks - one morning shift and two after lunch. For the third day, we did two shifts, one before lunch and one after. For the playoffs after lunch, the scouts were shifted into spectators/team spirit.
We normally had 8-10 scouts, so that even during their scouting shifts they could get permission to take bathroom breaks, go to the concession stand, etc. Most scouts had one or two non-scouting shifts across the three days. A few people had more hybridized roles; for example if we only had two people who wanted to do media, we would have them alternate media and scouting.
We also typically had one lead scout who would be scheduled to be in the stands with the scouts every shift (though not actively scouting every match, since there were 7-9 other scouts). They were in charge of making sure all the scouts knew who was scouting which robot in each match, and managing bio breaks and shift changes. If they needed a break, a mentor would fill in for them.