One thing that stood out to me during the Week Zero’s were the size of the rockets and how much they impede the view of the field for the scouters and the spectators. I have been thinking we might have to break up the scouters into multiple groups that sit at opposite sides of the field to scout the action on the rockets on the audience side of the field.
Any suggestions on how to effectively scout this year?
the FMS UI is built pretty well this year to help keep track of whats getting scored where during the match. It may not be realtime, but it will help.
It certainly does make it harder for the scouts, but I have confidence my scouts can put together that if I robot comes up with a hatch/cargo, leaves without it, and the alliance’s score increased, then it’s highly likely the robot successfully scored. As long as you have only 1 robot per scout I think it’ll be fine.
If you don’t have 6 scouts you might be better off using TBA for the quantitative data and using your scouts for qualitative scouting.
If you watched the Merrimack Week 0 scrimmage, where an actual fplaying field was used, you’ll notice there was an attempt at making the rockets as “view-through” as possible.
I guess the cargo nets in the back of the Cargo Vessel compartments might have had some role in allowing people to see what is entering the the compartment on the opposite side.
As noble as the effort might have been, that will surely one of the points scouting team and spectators will agree WAS NOT ts of the 2019 - Destination: Depp Space field design.
There was the rule that our rule book team found: no saving seats.
We like to sit together as a team so not sure how that rule will apply to the scouters moving around. At Tech Valley, RPI has a balcony that scouters can go to to watch the match but it may seem risky as you cannot save seats. Currently, i think the rule is mainly intended for Finals day when everyone comes to watch.
The rule is intended for the whole competition.
As a smaller team of 12 students - pit crew - drive team, we have yet to ever sit anywhere close to the center of the action.
For us the main issue is that typically it’s all hands on deck in the morning and then when we go to sit, our scouts are tucked up in the corner.
For others, sitting somewhere on day one also typically sends an unwritten message to others that this is our spot and we’ll be back tomorrow.
The rule is largely ignored at most venues because it’s largely unworkable. In fact, enforcing could create serious liability issues for FIRST. What happens if a team can’t keeps its underage students together under a mentor’s supervision due this rule, and a student is involved in an incident? Is FIRST willing to take on the sole liability for the outcome of that incident since it created the situation where adults and students couldn’t sit together? It’s a very poorly designed rule that is ignored in the breech.
Not to completely hijack the thread, but I’ve always thought that instead of trying to perform the Sisyphean task of eliminating seat saving, events should more or less accept that it happens and establish a system for teams to reserve blocks of seats beforehand. Perhaps teams could request a number of seat saver cards before the event and place them on the seats they wish to save.
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