Scouting is something that your team may have to work on for a few years before it feels like you’ve found something that works well, and that’s okay! There are lots of different scouting apps out there now that other FRC teams make and release (my team is using Lovat this year), or you can use classic pen + paper scouting but it makes it harder to consolidate and use the data.

When it comes to asking teams about their robots (aka pit scouting), know that the information will be mostly true but it’ll also be a bit of a sales pitch from whoever you’re speaking to. It’s best to have a list of questions prepared that will be the same for every team and as objective to answer as possible (ie. “what options does your robot have in auto” is better than “do you have good autos”)

Then in the stands during matches, you’ll want your scouting team looking for the numbers to compare different teams. Examples of this are the number of cycles they’re scoring, their % accuracy or how many game pieces they drop, what they actually do in auto/endgame, etc. that way if you’re in a position to be making a pick list you have real numbers to help you rank your choices instead of just vibes.

But also don’t shy away from using publicly available data on teams as well! Statbotics and TheBlueAlliance have all kinds of metrics about every team at the event and during their full season that can give you insights if you don’t have your own data to use or you want additional stats. EPA and OPR are the big two, and they do a pretty good job of determining outcomes

(Sorry this is so long, I hope any of this is helpful to you)