I started out last year in FRC as a proxy to my current team 1311. I traveled to the Smoky Mountain Regional and helped the one man scouting sector of my team. It was mostly very benign and pointless due to my teams absolutely atrocious robot. It did however introduce me to the wonders of FIRST and FRC. I felt like a part of something bigger, something that can change my future. After the kickoff however, I realized, I have LITTLE Skill set. That’s why I can get back to my FIRST roots this year, and instead of scouting being “cop-out” this year, it actually matters! So many defenses to place, so many robots to catalog. It just makes me rather happy that with my little skill set, I can still help my team. Just thought I’d thank FIRST for making scouting important!
Scouting is important every year, can sure increase performance knowing tendencies, I’d put scouting slightly below the importance of a good drive team and on par with robot design . Congrats for taking it on.
While scouting definitely is important every year, it’s more important this year. Never before (that I know of) has the opposing alliance been able to choose the obstacles that your alliance will be traversing and vice-versa. In order to be prepared for a match, a team should know the drivetrain capabilities for every robot on the field, tendencies for where they acquire boulders, how they are affected by a limited view of the field etc. This info can then be used against your opponent like never before.
One thing I think will have a huge impact this year is pre-match strategy. While most teams just meet up in the queue line and say “you shoot here, I’ll intake from here, blah blah blah…” now there’s a lot more to figure out. I’d think most, if not all teams would benefit from meeting with their alliance partners well in advance of their match, and really put some thought into how it will play out. A team with a bad robot, and brilliant strategy, can be more competitive than ever before.
So what if you have less skills? Probably 1/4 to 1/2 of your team are new members who also have little skill. Your robotics experience is what you make of it; if you want to learn how to build a robot, go do it.
On the other hand, if you really enjoy scouting and watching robots, then that is what you get out of the program. I’m sure some employer out there would appreciate the skill of accurately accessing performance.
I agree! Scouting is gonna be fun this year. You’d have to combine scouting information from 3 robots to build the perfect Outerworks that would annoy them the most.
As an old friend of Kell Robotics from back in the 2000’s, I doubt your robot was really atrocious. You have a really fantastic team of students and mentors with amazing dedication. Here’s to a better run next year.
That’s what I have been saying. I feel like at regionals, I’ll be looking at match schedules and telling teams what we can do, and looking at other teams and seeing what they cannot do. So many options, so little time!!!
If you haven’t already, I would highly recommend selecting someone who’s interested in Strategy to be your team’s Match Strategist.
I’ve been doing Match Strategy for a few years on 610, and I feel that our team has had much more impact in every match that we play. An organized, well thought-out plan that plays to the strengths of your robots can turn a mediocre alliance into a qualifications powerhouse.
The job of the Match Strategist is mainly to study the game and create a “Playbook” before a regional that contains 10-15 types of robots that you may or may not see at the regional. The Playbook contains 3-4 randomized matches of 5 of these robot types, along with your team’s robot, and it is the job of the Strategy division to find the optimal way to play those randomized matches.
This is great practice in the pre-competition season, and it can greatly improve how efficiently you work at competition events. The toughest part about being the Match Strategist is when you have 2 match turnaround or even back-to-back matches at smaller events, in which case you need to be running around, talking to your alliance and evaluating the capabilities of the opposing alliance.
Its gonna be interesting this year especially concerning how well a robot can score and how well they can breach. My scouting setup right now is very robust for this season.
I agree that this year will prove to be quite the task for scouts around FRC. IMHO I believe that this year scouting will be just a much of a challenge as playing the game on the field. I feel that this year, much more than many others, having a good strategy going in will have more to do with the outcome of the match than the physical capabilities of the competing robots.
I agree. Scouting will be more important during seeding matches than it has been in several years, perhaps ever. It’s always important for alliance selection and elims.
I feel like this year, if a team can do one task very effectively, it will have a place on an alliance. Even if the robot is completely helpless in terms of breaching or shooting, it could still be built well for defense, which could make it valuable.
The key to good defending this year will not be nearly as much the robot as the driver. It doesn’t take too many fouls to offset the points you’re costing the other alliance with your defense.
Last year, scouting was a mess for my team. Not only did we have Recycle Rush, quite uneventful, we were scouting on Xbox controllers, and didn’t have much time to train people.
This year we have a super awesome game, and are working on a app for tablets because while xbox controllet’s worled, tablets may make it funner.
Trust me, I know that feeling of being totally irrelevant. As the strats monkey, I really had no purpose last year besides saying “this alliance partner does this, and the other one does this.” This season, there’s a lot that can vary from match to match, so my role suddenly has purpose again! Anyway, best of luck in your scouting ventures! Ultimately, having a good robot and a good driver are the two most important parts, but scouting definitely has a lot more relevance than it did last season.
Edxu - I agree. Scouting will be awesome this year. I’m the scouting mentor from Team 3663. We got to the Finals in Curie at Worlds with a very carefully thought out alliance selection. Scouting is always a big deal but this year more than ever. My team and I are ecstatic about match strategy this year. Your team, 610, was awesome by the way.
One thing I’m curious about with your playbook - do you find that it really corresponds to the matches you encounter? I can see it working when applied with broad strokes (example: high goal scorer, breaching defense robot that uses an arm to manipulate Portcullis, Sally Port, Cheval de Frise, and Drawbridge, etc), but I find that each robot has such unique characteristics that our scouters need to treat them as individuals. What are your thoughts?
Anyway, best of luck in your scouting ventures! Ultimately, having a good robot and a good driver are the two most important parts, but scouting definitely has a lot more relevance than it did last season.