Last year, I saw a team (I think 1503 - correct me if I’m wrong) using some sort of scantron scouting system to scout. I would LOVE to get something like this set up for my team to use next year or even at championships, if possible.
If anyone knows anything about scouting using scantron sheets, I have a few questions:
-What devices do you need in order to make this work?
-Do you need a power supply at competition to run this?
-If your team uses this, how effective has it been?
I dunno about the team using it, nor do I have any personal experience with scantrons themselves, but from what I’ve heard my teachers say, they’re rather expensive per pack of scantrons, and I’d guess that since our school only has like 2 scantron machines, that machines aren’t exactly a dime a dozen either. That’s only from my school experience though. I haven’t done any research on them, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were cheap portable versions of scantrons
Yes, it was 1503. We didn’t use “official” Scantron sheets – we made our own, by adding boxes to the scouting sheet that the scouts in the stands would fill in. We had a consumer-grade auto-feed scanner set up in the pit (where there’s guaranteed power) and a custom computer program that would read each sheet and populate the scouting database. No computers or power were needed in the stands.
I’m not sure what 1503 did this year, but last year when I was coaching I had an Android tablet that I would dump the data to before seeking out our alliance partners to strategize. The fact that the scanner/computer was located in the pit made this really convenient. Overall, the system was really effective.
Or you could nix the old scanning machine and use a digital camera and some automated image processing to decode the bubbles and import the data.
You could use a printed envelope with carefully-placed cutouts to direct your scouts to enter the results in the appropriate bubbles on the answer sheet. For the next match, advance the answer sheet to a new row by sliding it through the envelope.
I’ve also seen teams organize their scouting system using barcodes. this could help if you are looking to integrate a written system with a digital system.
If you’re looking for organization and entertainment, I’d like to recommend (even though it seems daunting) looking into a DS scouting system. Our team uses it and has dedicated programmers who work on making a Scouting interface for each season’s game. The data is imported from 6 DS’s then into a computer and an interface (that was originally in Python might be different now) organized it all for easy decision making.
If you’re interested try searching in the forums I’m sure there’s probably some old information around.
And to think we just went with pencil and paper scouting this year…Though for the sake of streamlining a process that not everyone necessarily enjoys, scantron scouting sounds like a good way to go. (Though, I did enjoy scouting this year, RR is plain **fun **to watch)
There was (If I recall correctly) a fair amount of tablet/laptop scouting last year at the Granite State Regional; which I personally find to be a good compromise between writing things down and doing the digital dance with scantrons and barcodes and what have you.
