Re: MARC 2012
 

Wow, that's 37 already! Should be a blast!

Re: MARC 2012
 

Here is the updated list as of 4/30/12:
48
68
107
123
191
245
280
461
470
494
548
830
862
1675
1718
2137
2337
2612
2832
2834
2851
3096
3175
3302
3322
3357
3547
3548
3641
4395

The following 12 teams are original participants (PLANK-OWNERS) and are automatically in the event:
51
70
226 (did not participate last year)(HAVE NOT RECEIVED VERBAL YET)
240
279
503
910
1023
1243
1504
1528
1732

Re: MARC 2012
 

Are you considering any rule changes? I would love to see the 2 qualifying points for the bridge go away! :D

Re: MARC 2012
 

1918 Just sent in our registration. We are looking forward to this awesome event and having a chance to see some good friends again.

Re: MARC 2012
 

I would love to see the co-op points switched to 1 point if you make it and 0 for anything else. However, that is not my decision. I leave all the rules changes up to my head ref (gary V.)and his team.

Re: MARC 2012
 

Why go away? The co-op bridge was one of the more exciting things in this game. Last second co-ops were amazing to see. Reducing to 1 co-op point I can deal with, but removing them completely not so much.

Re: MARC 2012
 

100% agree. FIRST is all about cooperating with you opponents and working together. As far as lessening the point value, the goal was to make it as valuable as winning (so you could ‘win’ even when you lost). If you lessen the points, that negates that to an extent.

Re: MARC 2012
 

Well.. for us.. at worlds.. we were 8-1 and in 16th rank mostly because 3 agreed upon coops didn't show up to coop with us. (not that the co-op failed for trying, but that they just wouldn't try to do it) That's why I'd like it to go away. :D Seems to allow teams to control others rankings a little too much. I like doing the co-op, just don't like the impact it has rankings. 1 point would certainly be better than 2.

Re: MARC 2012
 

I have seen this happen to ourself and others. This is exactly why I think it should be lowered.

Re: MARC 2012
 

I am not sure that making it 1pt is going to make things any better. If nothing else, it makes it easier for a team to decide not to do it. Which, if you are on the other side of that decision is still going to effect your ranking. All it does is change the situations in which a team decides to coop or not.

We used the coop bridge with great success this year. We took advantage that winning + coop will move us way up in the rankings and that doing it consistently everytime will lead to great success. In our local districts team s that knew us pretty much agreed we should be the ones to do it, and we had no shortage of willing and capable partners. At MSC, so teams from farther away from metro-Detroit, did not know us so well and we had to have a direct conversation about why we should do it. Everyone at MSC was capable. In St. Louis, it was even worse...we needed to convince most teams that we should be the one coop'ing and then struggle to find an opponent that was capable of performing the task with us.

I also saw a lot of teams declining to coop or agreeing and not showing up. We have never experienced that this season, but I can imagine that is probably one of the worst feelings...knowing someone is messing with your ranking for their own benefit (without beating you) or even worse they just lied to you.

Making it 1pt, lessens the pain of those lies, but also makes it easier to either decieve someone or just plain tell them you don't want to do it. It definitely changes the dynamic a bit.

It still takes the same effort and time to do it. If you are going too...wouldn't you want to get the most benefit from it?

I say either leave it as 2pts...or get rid of it all together for off-season events and let us just run up the scores as much as possible...:D

Re: MARC 2012
 

That is a very good point I hadn't thought of Adam. I think you are right about this.

Re: MARC 2012
 

I think that the value of the bridge is exactly what first has been trying to accomplish with coop bridge. It allows teams that were not able to play the game well to play in the elimination rounds. How many times in Michigan alone did we see a robot that could not shoot and in some cases even pick up a ball end up as an alliance captain.
It might be fun to make it no value and just run up the score. That would also give us a chance to do some triple balancing in the quals.

Re: MARC 2012
 

I don't have any problem with co-op since we were pretty successful with it all year; in fact, although a little more difficult, we managed to go 9 for 9 on Galileo. However, if you do decide to do away with it for MARC, it might be interesting to play elimination rules (triple balance) for the whole thing. Of course that may open a whole other can of worms...the scheduling gods may put some teams consistently on alliances that can triple while others get doomed to alliances that don't have a chance. My preference would be to keep the co-op...I like to think that most teams at this event would put an honest effort into doing it, or at least be honest in telling you that they don't plan to.

Re: MARC 2012
 

You'd have to be pretty shallow to either not try to co-op, lie about co-op, or break up a co-op attempt at an off-season event. (IMHO anyway)

Re: MARC 2012
 

And expect to ever get another invite to return...