Jiayu Wang Interview (Scouting Systems Lead)

Who is Jiayu Wang?

Jiayu Wang is a junior at Northview High School. He joined the Techno Titans in his freshman year and is currently our Scouting Systems lead. Outside of robotics, he enjoys playing the violin, fencing, playing video games, and doing math. 

What is Scouting Systems?

Scouting Systems is a sub-team that aims to develop a new scouting app each year. During bootcamp, students learn how to code Java and work with Android Studio. They start coding the scouting app after they gain experience. The scouting app is crucial for competitions. Every match, six scouters watch a different robot on the field and enter the data into a tablet. The Strategy team receives all the data for evaluation. To learn more about scouting and the scouting app, read here: Scouter Appreciation Post

Q&A

Q1: What got you interested in joining robotics?

“During my freshman orientation, I was looking around and saw our trifold, and I got interested in joining. Then, when choosing which sub-team to join, I asked my friend to choose either programming or design, partly because I was indecisive, but also because I couldn't make it to the meeting that day, and he signed me up for programming.” 

Q2: How would you describe your leadership role to someone unfamiliar with the role?

“I introduce and teach students how to code Java. It’s essentially an AP Computer Science A cram course, but with more focus on the application of concepts rather than the knowledge of syntax. Within around four weeks, they should all be prepared to start applying their knowledge of object-oriented programming to understanding and contributing to the scouting app code.” 

Q3: What prior experience of coding did you have before becoming a part of leadership?

“I learned how to code through our team’s bootcamp in ninth grade with the help of a friend, YouTube videos, w3schools, and AI. I built a strong understanding of exactly what Java was, so later, when beginning to work on the scouting app, I could understand new stuff quickly and contribute effectively.” 

Q4: What are some personal goals that you want to achieve this season?

“First, I would like to improve the UI of the scouting app and make designing a pleasant and usable interface easier for future seasons. But also, I would like to make the data visualization and analysis software better and try to automate some stuff for the strategy sub-team.” 

Q5: What are some sub-team goals that you want to accomplish this season?

“During bootcamp, I want to get everyone familiar with Java. And competition-wise, it would be nice to get a working scouting app that has all systems working consistently well before competitions start, so we don't have to do any last-minute fixes. Last year, this was a slight issue, and it often cost us not having scouting data for the first few matches.” 

Q6: How are you managing your sub-team now that it is newly formed?

“For now, it is just beginner programming and Java, which has been going well. But soon, Scouting Systems will be a little different from beginner programming in the past years because we will also learn how to apply the Java bootcamp knowledge to making the scouting app with Android Studio.” 

As the leader for a new sub-team, Jiayu has been working extremely hard for his sub-team members, trying to teach his students Java in just a couple of weeks and preparing them to use that knowledge to create something key for our competitions. We cannot wait to see their progress soon!