Philosophy
My philosophy with the 4855 Scouter is to stay committed to making scouting as accessible, simple, and efficient as possible. I come from a background of
messy and disorganized Google spreadsheets full of confusing, conditionally formatted cells, scouting structures with no accountability, and large quantities of
papers full of copious notes that end up going completely unused.
The 4855 Scouter makes the most of all the information given to it. As a driver myself, I know what kind of data helps make gameplan decisions, so the match simulator
was made in such a way to maximize every available piece of information and make it viewable at a glance. Every scouting sheet also has names attached to it, so scouters
can easily be held accountable for not carrying their weight or rewarded for exceptional data.
Accessibility is no longer an issue, as not only is the scouter flexible to any device no matter the availability of internet, and it's easy for rookies to catch on fast.
Each scouting form can be boiled down to the number of game pieces processed during a match, if a team initiated any defensive efforts,
and how well a team climbed.
About me and the team
Team 4855 is a team based out of South Haven located in Michigan on the southern Lake Michigan coastline. Our rookie year was in 2013.
I am currently a senior in high school and the lead programmer for Ramageddon. I've been a member of drive team in some capacity for all of my prior three years of high school,
being a backup driver in 2017, drive coach in 2018, and driver in 2019. I've been developing this scouter since early October of 2019 in an attempt to streamline an existing
scouting system that was badly convoluted.
The best way to reach out to me about all things FRC is through a PM on Chief Delphi. I'd love to hear from anyone using this scouter on how they like it and what
I can do to improve it in the future!
How it's made
The 4855 Scouter was written in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The system uses the localStorage API to hold scouting forms, and forms are exported in .JSON format.
The .JSON files can be named whatever you wish if you want to organize your data. Even if a file has forms in it that are duplicate in another file, those files will not be
duplicated when imported into the system.
Key features
Standard scouters and lead scouters can make match forms or verbal forms. A match form is data recorded during a specific match on stats such
stats such as how many game pieces a team cycled and whether or not a team climbed. Verbal forms contain data collected by approaching teams and asking them for info. To avoid
unnecessary complexity and collection of unneeded data, we minimized the number of questions asked on verbal forms, simply asking only the core questions we can't necessarily collect during
matchplay alone (i.e. robot weight, drivetrain, defensive capability).
When a scouter is ready to send any number of their scouting forms to the lead scouter, they can click a button which will download a JSON file to their device. This data must then
be transfered to the lead scouter's scouter program (via network switch, USB flash drive, Bluetooth, snail mail, owl, etc.) where they import the data to their database to view
every team's forms side-by-side.
Once the lead scouter has their hands on the data, they now have powerful analytical tools at their fingertips. Every team receives a calculated rating known as an RPI (Ramageddon Power Index)
much like an offensive power rating that permits scouters to rank and evaluate teams at a glance based upon it. In addition, the 4855 Scouter has a match simulator which predicts a full scoring breakdown,
ranking point breakdown, the defense likely to be played from either alliance, and insights on which stats will be the turning point in every match. The 4855 Scouter can also generate a playoff
pick list, allowing scouters to eliminate teams that are no longer available to choose and rank all teams by what they're looking for in an alliance partner such as autonomous, teleop, or defensive abilities.
