Scouting
Introduction
Scouting is an important part of the competition, and if done right can grant many advantages to the team come competition time. Generally, it is carried out in the stands by seven team members of the scouting team – one member per robot, and then a scouting lead who compiles the information and assesses the big picture. There are two main purposes to scouting: Finding good alliance members, and knowing what strategies to use against which teams.
Prior to the team’s match, the scouting team should then report to the alliance captains in order to offer advice and plan the match’s strategy.
Another form of scouting, called pit scouting, takes place before matches. Groups of two or three members go around to teams in the pits and ask questions about their robots. This gives us a a good idea of what we will see in the actual competition.
Procedure
There are many good ways to go about scouting the match, so exact procedures are not outlined below. Nonetheless, ensure that there are six willing members to observe each robot, and also establish ahead of a time a system of communication and filing so as to better gather and process data after each round.
At Atlanta 07, for example, the team used the following system:
Six members with loose-leaf paper observed the field during a round, taking notes on their robot. At the end of the round, they reported the data to the scouting lead, who entered it into a text document on his laptop. During the match, the scouting lead would observe overall strategies. At the end of the day, each robot observed was compiled and ranked in an excel document.
While this system worked well, feel free to experiment and adapt to the situation as needed. This method tends to now work better at regionals, when not everyone has access to a laptop. In later years, we found for Atlanta game scouting that if everyone (or at least the majority) of scouters brought a laptop, we can create an excel spreadsheet on Googledocs. With this program, all the scouters can hook up together to the same spreadsheet on all the computers. Then, they can input their data and all the others scouters can see it and add comments if necessary. Plus it makes the work of the head scouter a lot quicker.
Also, before our team goes on, the head scouter needs to write down what their data says about the robots we're not only competing against, but working with- including any patterns they see or possible strategies. Then, a runner needs to get sent to the pits to give the data to the coach and any other strategists there to help them. That way, when talking to the rest of the alliance, the team has a better idea of what would be best for our alliance and what would hurt the other one.
For pit scouting, what the team found in 09 that seemed effective was to travel in groups of three to the pits. It's important to have a recorder and one or two communicators. The people who are talking to the other pits should be focusing more on just communicating and building relations with teams. It's important to ask questions about the robot, but even more important to get an idea about how the team works with others. Don't just stand there and interview them with no emotion. Make sure you get them to want to talk to you. Try some small talk, such as how the day is going or something interesting in their pit. During this time, recorders should be listening closely to the conversation and writing down what they feel is important. The majority of notes taken during pit scouting this year were about the basic type of robot and small comments brought up in the conversation. Many things like how good the robot is a defense, scoring, etc. can be found out during game scouting. However, things like preference (offense/defense) and other small details are better found out here.
General Tips
Stay Organized
With the volume of information coming in from each round, it is easy to lose track of the information. Plan ahead and ensure there is a solid system of data storage. On the other hand, make sure to not become fixated on organization, to the point where you’re not focusing on the matches.
Be Prepared
Nothing's worse than finding out that the scouting team has 10 minutes to pick the top 30 robots in the division. Make sure there is a schedule at hand, and prepare ahead of time to deliver reports and suggestions. Also, make sure that runners get the game scouting information to the pits a good twenty or thirty minutes before the match as possible so they have time to read it over and talk with the other teams.
Data Over Numbers
Remember – you want actual advice at the end of the day, not just a bunch of numbers. When the captain asks if 2039 is a good defender, and all you have is that it has 6 wheels and a ramp, then chalk that up as a failure. The bottom line is: gather advice, not data. In order to do this, it can often be a good idea to allow the scouting team a great deal of freedom in what data they report, so that instead of collecting raw data, they may focus on what's important, such as the perceived strength and weaknesses of opposing robots as well as possible patterns they tend to follow and what strategies they tend to follow.
Stay Motivated
It’s match 390, you have six paragraphs on robot 239 and that scouter wants a break – give it to them. Beg, compliment, suck up, do whatever it takes to keep your teammates motivated and excited – even when you’re on your butts for seven hours straight. While on that subject, it is also important to mention that you should...
Never Force Someone to Scout
Remember once again that scouting is a grueling process - one that can only get worse when someone is doing it against their will. If you're low on scouters, make do with what you've got. By making someone scout, you engage in a lose-lose situation, where the team gets inaccurate data, while the person just becomes increasing disgruntled.
Keep Your Data
Robots might change over the course of different competitions, but it may or may not be by much. Even if data does change, it shows you the overall trend in a team's performance, and whether you can anticipate that their robot will be even better next time you see it, or a pile of broken pieces. Keep your data from competition to competition so that by Battlecry or other offseason events, you have a veritable Encyclopedia Robotica.
Keep these in mind, and happy scouting!
