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 other 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 opposing 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 off 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