Scouting

Courtesy of FRC 4607

What is Scouting?

• The evaluation of the abilities of an FRC team and its robot = BIG ADVANTAGE

• "We don't have a good enough robot, so we won't need to scout" ... FALSE

• Use for alliance selection AND match strategy

Pit Scouting

• Involves going to teams' pits and asking them about their robots

• Use pit scouting to learn things that you can't see from the stands

  • Drivetrain, motors & mechanisms, other unique features, autonomous plans

• Don't ask "How many points can you score?"

Match Scouting

• Occurs in the stands and involves team members watching and recording what happens during the match

• Use this to figure out how many points a robot contributes and the following:

  • What role in your strategy do they fill

  • Do they play defense or offense

• Works best when you have one scout per robot on the field

• Have scouts primarily focus on quantitative information while making subjective notes about unique accomplishments during the match

  • Eg: a robot can shoot a ball abnormally far

Scouting Binder

• The center for all scouting info

• One page per robot per match

  • Each scout fills out the page during the match  and hands the sheet to the lead scout to put in the binder

  • End result is a binder that documents the result for every robot for every match

• For each team: 

  • Info from pit & match scouting

  • Summary page for each team

The Data

• Figure out who to play defense on for your upcoming match and how

  • Note* defense should usually not be the sole strategy of a robot if the defending robot has scoring capabilities

  • Defense should usually be played opportunistically

• Use what you know about the opposing alliance to determine your match strategy

• Make pick lists based on what you know about each of the teams: Break teams down by what roles in your strategy they fill and rank them

Use of OPR

• OPR: Offensive Production Rating

• Gives an idea of a team's individual contribution to a match

  • Works better for some years than others

• SHOULD NOT be used as the main determining factor for picking teams