My team is pretty new and we do not know how to scout. Do we watch all the matches? If so, how many per team should we watch? Or is simply talking to each team enough? Do you guys look at OPR, DPR, and CCWM?
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What I do is probably not the most efficient method, but I look at past live streams from my region and write down what each team has on their robot. This helps for qualification matches and alliance selection.
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Looking at previous placement and scores along with what matches they have had. I keep mine organized into a spreadsheet one with the teams info and the other for scouting.
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I usually have one member who watches matches – they’ll watch as many matches as possible and take notes on them. As we get into mid-season and most teams have had a few comps, I’ll look at their past performance to see how they’ll likely do at other comps.
For alliance selection scouting, I generally look at teams’ match schedules and how they did at the day’s comp (especially teams ranked +/- 5 places of mine). Someone can have a low ranking but might’ve had a harder match schedule and be actually pretty good.
I mostly talk to teams that my team has a match with or is considering allying with, but making a few friends from other organizations is really valuable long-term. Even if you don’t ally with their team, it can help when scouting their sibling teams, it makes comps a lot more fun, and is also useful for learning some robotics tips (especially as a new team).
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Hello! Our team usually does scouting by looking for people who are reliable and can do things we can’t or have trouble doing. Example, our robot’s Mogo Mech might have problems, look for people who’s Mogo Mech was working well. Look through the standings, who has a game strategy which will work well with your’s, etcetera. Also, look through VEX Via and VRC RoboScout. They will have great statistics to look through. Hope this helps! Have a great season!
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I also use a spreadsheet (Google) template that I made to see how teams do previously and it comes with a scouting sheet where I would go around and go ask the teams.
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I right down skills scores and then check off boxes on what they have on their bot+their match history
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I would write down either on a piece of paper or on a spreadsheet data of the teams, and general things about the robot. For example, you can track places, skills score, match history, etc. You can also list things that the robot has/can do, for example listing things like good wall stake mechanisms or climbs.
I personally don’t watch all the matches, but tend to watch maybe 2 per team just to see how their bot is preforming at the tourney. Talking to the team also helps you get an idea of their bot’s abilities and lets them know you are interested in them.
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Other than watching matches, what I do is I interview every single team at a competition, especially if it is a smaller comp. For example; my last competition had 38 teams (including my team), I managed to interview 35/38 teams, all I would do was go up to them, ask a list of questions about their robot, ask for a picture, and finish.
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This seems like a good strategy for smaller competitions, yes, but what about for larger ones. Especially if you make it to States or Worlds, you can’t exactly interview everyone there. I would say try and learn how to use something such as RoboScout. But if you have your eyes on someone, please go and do an interview with them before the alliance selection.
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I didn’t notice this the first time I posted, but I highly suggest using other methods. In my team’s experience, this is not very accurate to the actual skill level of the robot.