2. NJ & NY FIRST Kickoff Topic: Scouting Teams and Rating Robots Presented by: East Coast Drivers Union

3. What is ECDU? Stands for: East Coast Drivers Union Formed by Corey(25), Mike(303) and Anthony(56) ECDU is meant to help unite drivers across the East Coast to forge friendly relationship between drivers As well as to teach rookie drivers unwritten rules of doing well in a FIRST competition following gracious professionalism.

4. What is Scouting? Basic Definition: The act of going out and studying other robots by asking questions and using your own vision to find out-- the way they play the game, how they can benefit you in an alliance, how you can stop them if they are an opponent, what problems they might have and what advantages they have

5. Why bother Scouting? Scouting is a MUST. Without it, you have very little information on other robots and how they perform as a partner and how their robot even works. Come alliance selection time, this is very important, you don't want to pick a broken robot. On our team(25), most rookie members, assisted by veteran members spend their first year scouting so they learn the robots and their mechanisms.

6. Scouting is the only real way to get to know teams real abilities. Watching and documenting works best. Sometimes teams “enhance” their abilities when talking to you. Fellas remember – Actions speak louder than words Developing a scouting systems allows more members to be involved and be a part of the game, rather than just watch. Why bother Scouting?

7. Preparing to scout A pen and paper is enough but we recommend making up scouting sheets and setup a group of kids to study robots. Setting up a computer database is also an option We prepare our scouts in the off-season by letting them loose (no help from veteran members) and let them scout and pick their choice of alliance partners even though they are totally rookie members. We will show you some scouting sheet examples later.

8. Types of Scouting: Pit Scouting – When ask teams questions and make your own judgments based on looking at the robot Round Scouting – When you draw conclusions based on the teams performance in their rounds

9. How to go about Pit Scouting? Go to their pits and ask questions Look at their robot and make your own judgement Consistency during previous years is always a good thing Pit scout during Thursday – the day practice matches are played

10. Pit Scouting – Things to Look For 1.Protections – Do they have all their vitals covered up? 2.Stability – Low or High center of gravity? 3.Drive Train – Is it reliable, or does it look like it causes problems? (Previous engineering experience might help)

11. How to go about Round Scouting Round Scout on Friday and Saturday during the elimination rounds Sit down in the stands, cheer for the teams playing and take notes on the performance of teams playing We suggest making Scouting Sheets so that you create a system of information to refer to when needed

12. 1.Manipulator – Does it work well? Is it a successful system? 2.Driving ability and co operation – Do they have an able drive team who can perform well under pressure? Will they co operate with their alliances/other teams? 3.Consistency – Do they perform well every round or do well in some and bad in others? 4.Scoring – How did they score in their matches? Do note that scores don’t prove if a team is good or not. Some teams are defensive and go unnoticed depending on the scoring system Round Scouting

13. What conclusions can you draw by looking at this? Seems to be well protected Can hold many balls No visible capper or hanger Wheel setup doesn’t look good – might lead to some turning problems

14. Bot looks like a very good capper and hanger Wheels are protected! Looks good at corralling, it seems to hold a lot of balls in a small area

15. Very low center of gravity – almost impossible to flip The design looks like a very good capper and herder What do you think?

16. Very basic bot However, it seems like the only thing it can do is corral Looks very well protected What Do You Think?

17. Team 1396s robot which was built in one day. All it is is a simple corraler – it has many faults however, looks like bad protection and such However, a very good bot for a one day job What Do You Think?

18. Other Scouting Notes: Sometimes photos of robots say a lot more than data. We almost always post pictures of our machine and we put the Curse of the Kahuna on those who keep their pix hidden. :-P Strategy development is often based on knowledge of who you are playing against. Every robot has it's weakness and only study of your opponent can reveal that. We often develop a number of playing strategies to deal with a variety of opponents.

19. While we don't assign people to visit regionals to scout, many of us do watch the live web casts to see who plays the game and how. It’s also great entertainment.

20. Insightful Quotes from famous FIRSTers I always keep my eye on scouting threads and I too am amazed at how some teams feel it is unimportant. The process 103 uses is very similar to what Wayne described with 25. About 20 of our current 33 student members are experienced in the scouting process. Five our our students (drive team, human player, and two head scouts) make up the strategy group that collect data from individual scouts and work directly on strategy with alliance partners. This Saturday at Ramp Riot, our new scouts will be trained. So far this year, we've held two scouting meetings for the sole purpose of ensuring success and commitment from our new people. —Rich Kressly

21. (BTW- we were eliminated due to our own mechanical problems- proving that you can't win all the time. We did our best and thats what counts.)-Wayne Cokeley

22. “Scouting is important, but not just to see the robots. More important then seeing what other team's robots can do is just seeing what strategies are being employed, and which are effective. A good robot alone won't make you win, you've got to employ it effectively. It's good practice for the drive team as well, watching matches helps you get the hang of evaluating the score instantly. I was a driver for two years, and I've seen some pretty bonehead mistakes that have cost teams matches they could have easily won if they employed basic strategy. …

23. “…Know your opponent's abilities, but more importantly go into every match with an effective strategy. This last season, I went and watched the stream from the regionals while the soap guys were digitizing. I feel it made me a much more effective driver, and gave us a strategy edge. If going to a regional is not cost effective, get a group togethor and watch the webcasts and critique the matches. Finally when you know you are going up an opponent people claim is "unbeatable" go back and watch the videos to see what people haven't tried.” –Mark Hamilton

24. Contact If you have any questions or need assistance regarding scouting, or if you want to join the East Coast Drivers Union, feel free to contact Corey Balint at corebalint@gmail.com or Bharat Nain at bharatnain@gmail.com corebalint@gmail.com bharatnain@gmail.com

25. Other Useful Links www.usfirst.org – Official FIRST Website, has a lot of useful links and some training presentationswww.usfirst.org www.chiefdelphi.com – A forum with holds together a large part of the online community in FIRST. There are tons of white papers and discussions about scouting. People also post pictures about their robots here, so it is an extremely good websitewww.chiefdelphi.com www.njfirst.org – Official NJ FIRST Website. It has contact information for useful people in FIRST if you shall need.www.njfirst.org