My team is thinking about scouting with another team at our first regional this year. We haven’t collaborated with another team in scouting before and would like some advice. What are the advantages and disadvantages? Do you have any advice that would make the scouting go smoother and be more sucessful?
I did a search, but surprising found no topic on this. Perhaps I used different keywords…
Scouting in collaboration with another team is an EXCELLENT idea! Particularly if your team is relatively small and hasn’t done much scouting before. The advantages are that the work is divided and reduces the pressure on your team. I can’t think of any real disadvantages to it. To make the scouting go smoother, get a list of people from both teams who will be eligible to scout, and set up 6 man rotations for every 10 matches or so.
I’m assuming you’ve scouted before, but if you haven’t, feel free to post more questions or PM me with them. If you haven’t developed a scouting database yet, PM me and I’ll post the questions my team used in their database. Most teams probably don’t have these resources, but since our school district gives each student a laptop, we have a PHP-based database that students access through a wireless network. We share it with the entire regional. However, if you don’t all have laptops, a paper system may be best.
Post more questions if you have them.
Having done multiple collaborations before (830-573, 830-201, 830-469), it is exponentially easier to use a database that is accessible to everyone because, if created properly, it can be readily updated for the strategists to work with.
If you must use a paper system, have one strategist from each team serve as a information runner to his or her respective drive team, instead of running the actual match scouting papers down to the pit. It’s VERY difficult to let both drive teams have access to the match scouting papers.
Also, with the paper system, it is beneficial to have both teams plan to be in the same area Friday night, in the case that both teams may be in alliance picking position the next day and want to make their tentative pick lists.
It helps a lot to have one person in charge of the scouts throughout the competition to ensure that communication between the teams is optimal.
Make sure that you have a scouting meeting beforehand with both teams’ scouts. You might have what seems to be the most self-explanatory system in the world, but you want to make sure that one team’s interpretation of a game or design aspect is the same as the other’s.
We collaborated on our scouting with Team 100 in Oregon this past weekend. It worked well for us - there were memebers of both teams collecting data throughout the day, and after we input it into our program, we sent them a spreadshet with all the data. It’s a fantastic idea if you don’t have the personnel to do it by yourself.
Team 190 and 971 scouted together last year at SVR and intend to share information again this year. At last year’s regional, 190’s established method was used and we just borrowed a few members to help with pit and match scouting. This year 971 is looking to set up their own system, so as it stands both teams will simply compare and share information.
I checked the information you were sharing on saturday and it was interesting. Although i am not a fan of purely data based scouting it was useful in knowing that what i saw and felt was backed up by data. Having our teams robot near the top of that list with 25 and 103 was also really awesome.
My question is do you have that database online somewhere?
EDIT
Also I want to add that my team is looking to exchange data with another team going to another regional. I want our team to be extensively prepared for our home regional this year so we have the best chances of going to nationals. Our team currently only has scouting information from the New Jersey regional. If you are interested, i would like to know what regional you would be attending.
Which week is your regional? I can provide Buckeye (Week 4) if it’s not too late.
Sorry but none of the teams I am scouting are attending that regional.