Alicia Bay, NC Gears Collecting information on other teams robots - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Today’s presenters: Adam Veenendaal, Red Storm Robotics Lindsey Bay, NC Gears Alicia Bay, NC Gears

• Collecting information on other teams’ robots (How is it built, what

does it do, what is your team’s main strategy, etc)

• Involves talking to teams, observing the robot’s performance during

match play and writing down the answers or collecting them electrically

Different parts of Scouting

 Pre Scouting (optional)  Pit Scouting  Match Scouting  Match Strategy (optional)  Alliance Selection Pick List

Reasons for Scouting

 Evaluation of the abilities of an FTC robot is a huge advantage for match

play and alliance selection

 Actively involves the team members that aren’t on the drive team and/or

pit crew

 Learn more about the game to improve your team’s performance

Where to start?

 Start with the game rules  Brainstorm all the different aspects that your team wants to know about

• ther robots

 Downsize and streamline the questions  Attempt to have both QUANTITATIVE (numeric data, yes/no) and

QUALITATIVE (opinions, ratings)

 Find the happy medium between good data and too much data  Good to review with all scouts before the first competition, even better to

do some practice scouting

Different data sources

 Using existing provided data  Pit Scouting  Match Scouting  YouTube / Twitch

 http://www.firstinmichigan.com/stream.php

How can Pit and Match scouting be done?

 Just observing and taking

notes

 Paper  Electronic

 Excel  Google Docs  Webpage  Tablet or smart phone app

Pit Scouting

 The least useful form of scouting

 BUT… great for new scouts and getting

more members involved. Fun to meet and talk to other teams!

 Involves going to teams’ pits and

asking them about their robots

 What mechanisms are teams using?  What is drive train?  What do teams say they can do?  What does your robot do in

autonomous?

 What is your team’s main strategy?  Take a picture of their robot.

FTC Standing Info

Orange Alliance

 https://theorangealliance.org/home

Standings

 https://theorangealliance.org/events/1718

• FIM-KEN

OPR

 Offensive Power Rating, is an attempt to

calculate a team’s contribution to their alliance’s final score.

 Doesn’t account for robots playing

defense

 Doesn’t always account for all elements of

the game.

FTC Match Details

 https://theorangealliance.org/matches/1718-

FIM-KEN-Q001-1

Keys to Successful Match Scouting

 Best if your team has 1 member scouting 1 robot per match (total of 4

scouts) if your team has enough members

 Having a schedule and shifts is helpful so members get breaks, know

what’s expected of them

 Know the game rules

Analyzing the Data

 You’ve collected all this great information, now use it!  During qualification matches, the data helps you to determine your

alliance’s game strategy

 Helps you to understand what your alliance is good at and what your

• pposing alliance can/can’t do

 Critical for your team’s pick list during alliance selection

Working with paper scouting data

 Identify the top skills you need in an alliance partner  Weed out the teams that would not make a great partner by removing

them from the pile

 As you scan the sheets, sort them in order  Write the pick list in order and give to your team’s representative for

alliance selection

Analyzing the data

 Weight different parts of

the game based on needs.

“Telling the story” from the data

 The data can help rank

teams’ robot skills required for a successful alliance

Pointers for Alliance Selection

 Make sure your list contains enough teams to cover the entire

alliance selection (usually 12 or 24) plus 1 or 2 more

 Pick robots that complement your robot and teams that you work

well with

 List the robots that you would like to pick in order of preference  During alliance selection, your team representative should cross

• ff the teams on your pick list as they are selected

Not in picking situation?

 Have team members talk to other teams that you think you

would make a great partner with based on your data

 Sell your robot and drive team’s abilities accordingly  Make personal connections with some of the top teams

Questions/Discussion