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-   -   Ungracious professionalism at internationals? (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=116493)

AmoryG 29-04-2013 16:43
Re: Ungracious professionalism at internationals?
 
Everyone should keep in mind that this also brings in to question the integrity of 1538, a team that just won Champion Chairman's Award. That doesn't exactly nullify this argument, but it definitely makes it seem pretty ridiculous to me. 1538, 1986, and 217 have at least earned the benefit of the doubt and a little bit of grace. I think 217's alliance should release a statement (if they haven't already), we should take their word for it, and then we should all move on.

nikeairmancurry 29-04-2013 16:49
Re: Ungracious professionalism at internationals?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by AmoryG (Post 1269356)
Everyone should keep in mind that this also brings in to question the integrity of 1538, a team that just won Champion Chairman's Award. That doesn't exactly nullify this argument, but it definitely makes it seem pretty ridiculous to me. 1538, 1986, and 217 have at least earned the benefit of the doubt and a little bit of grace. I think 217's alliance should release a statement (if they haven't already), we should take their word for it, and then we should all move on.
Paul has posted.

BHS_STopping 29-04-2013 17:10
Re: Ungracious professionalism at internationals?
 
From what I've gathered, the conversations that 217 had with alliance captains went something like this:

"Listen, we're in a very bad spot right now and if you pick us, we probably won't be able to help your alliance very much. If you do pick us, we will try our best to get everything repaired but we can't make any promises. There are other teams out there that can help you more than we can right now."

If this is the case, then I don't see any problem with it. 1538 decided it was worth the gamble and picked 217. They got the robot up and running, but continued to have problems throughout elims. I think that it is unfortunate that teams feel uncomfortable with how the whole situation played out. Perhaps we can discuss ways to approach this situation to ensure that teams don't feel misdirected afterward?

Patrick Flynn 29-04-2013 17:27
Re: Ungracious professionalism at internationals?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by kaliken (Post 1269328)
So given all of this. I actually think the true lesson is (in case you are in the unfortunate position that Paul was put in) the message needs to be extremely clear. Essentially.. "We are Broken and will decline all invitations", "we are broken, but are willing to help the alliance if picked. Please come and look at our robot so you can see the extent of our damage so you can make an assessment" (letting other people see allows for clear and open discussion)
How is this a necessary lesson? I think the lesson is just the opposite, before a team rules one team out they need to figure out what was meant by that team. Would you trust the team that said they have a 9 disc auto because they told you that? No you'd go check out their matches.

I'm sure Paul told every team the same thing, whatever that may have been, and he was 100% honest about it. And yes teams took that statement different ways. Bottom line if you ruled this team out without ever walking by their pit and seeing what was going on there is no one to blame but yourself here. Maybe Paul told teams they couldn't be fixed because he didn't have the necessary parts to make repairs. But if you had asked them and discovered that all they needed were two parts you had sitting in your pit would you have ruled them out so fast?

Bottom line here scouting isn't over till your done picking.

fuzzwaz 29-04-2013 17:57
Re: Ungracious professionalism at internationals?
 
*Sigh*

What a crazy thread. I feel terrible for 1538 and that there has to be any talk about them after championship that is not related to there amazing feat at worlds this year. Congratulations on being our 2013 Hall of Fame team. It is a honor that is truly hard to come by.

As for 217, come on my peeps! This team rocks! I remember there was a Michigan FLL team called the Crazy Colorful Chickens and in just reminded me about how awesome having the word "Chicken" in your team makes you. I'm sorry that there is all this craziness surrounding you guys. You were amazing at MSC.

Koko Ed 29-04-2013 18:07
Re: Ungracious professionalism at internationals?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bryce Paputa (Post 1269314)
Why would a team want to emulate a poorly performing team? Until a judge says differently, I'm going to assume (maybe a bad idea) that there is a robot performance cut off as part of the award, that could very easily be being picked for division eliminations or being semi finalists, etc. In FTC and FLL (in michigan at least), you must be in the top 10% (maybe a different number, not completely sure) of robot performance to be considered for the Inspire/Champions award, FRC is probably similar.
There are two teams in the FIRST HOF who are rarely competitive. But no one ever questions their presence there. Getting in the HOF has NOTHING to do with how good your robot is. It's about how good your team is.

Jon Jack 29-04-2013 18:15
Re: Ungracious professionalism at internationals?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by AmoryG (Post 1269356)
I think 217's alliance should release a statement (if they haven't already), we should take their word for it, and then we should all move on.
Myself, Jeff Patz & Paul Copioli have already made statements in either this thread or the locked thread. There is nothing else to be said or speculated about other than we took a huge gamble picking 217. That gamble almost paid off, but in the end we were eliminated in the divisional finals.

To Jeff, Arron and the rest of Team 1986 - It was an honor working with you guys. You guys were incredibly professional and we enjoyed every second of working with you guys. You're clearly a program with a huge upward trajectory and have been for many years. I can't wait to see what the future has in store for you guys. Congrats on the three regional wins this year - a feat which is extremely difficult to pull off. Too bad we couldn't help win a 4th (and maybe even 5th) banner for you guys.

To Paul and the rest of Team 217 - All of 1538 has an deep respect for you guys. We've competed with and against each other over the years and we were excited to finally be behind the same driver station as you during the elims at championships. We were oh so close, too bad we couldn't have pulled out those last two wins and made it to Einstein.

bduddy 29-04-2013 18:32
Re: Ungracious professionalism at internationals?
 
I'm as cynical as they come, but to me this looks like a communication issue. Some teams in the division, including presumably those the OP of this thread and the other one are on, took 217's message as "We're totally broken, you should definitely not pick us". 1538, at least, took the message as "We're broken right now, and you probably shouldn't pick us". Why was that? Who knows - different interpretations of the same statement, different people from 217 spreading it, the pits being really loud, etc., etc. As much as part of me would like to think it's intentional, there are enough reasonable explanations by reasonable people around here that I don't think it is.
Lessons learned - before you cross a good team off your list, or add a potentially broken one to it, learn as much about their situation as possible. Don't go off one person's word, no matter who it is.

Dmentor 29-04-2013 19:16
Re: Ungracious professionalism at internationals?
 
I'm curious if any of the alliances that feel slighted would have selected 217 knowing what they know now? If no, then why feel slighted?

I find this situation particularly difficult since I can't think of a more appropriate course of action than what Paul took. If we had a robot that had broken prior to elims (and in our estimation couldn't be fixed) I'd sure let other teams know about it. If at that point someone picked us anyways, then at least the team made an informed decision. Who are we to give anything but our best when put in that situation?

Weird how good intentions can end up so distorted...

David Brinza 29-04-2013 19:42
Re: Ungracious professionalism at internationals?
 
If you doubt a decision can be made about the health of robot late in alliance selections, this happened at the 2010 Los Angeles Regional:

In the second last qual match, a robot broke off a front wheel assembly after landing awkwardly coming off a bump. It really looked bad, as the wheel flailed around - just held to the robot by its drive belt. Most teams wrote the robot off as DOA, but the team went back to the pit to repair the robot. A mentor from first pick of the #3 alliance saw the robot could be fixed, and rushed to the field just in time to select that team to round out their alliance. The #3 alliance made it to the finals, losing to the #1 alliance in four tough, exciting matches (first one was a tie).

Team 980 was most grateful to Teams 294 and 968 for taking a chance by picking us. What a wild, emotional ride for our team!

Alan Anderson 30-04-2013 10:49
Re: Ungracious professionalism at internationals?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by EricLeifermann (Post 1269054)
Is it right to tell teams you are done and then accept an invitation to an alliance? If you were going to accept no matter what , why even take the time to tell teams you're broken?
If you're going to decline invitations, you don't need to bother going around telling anyone you're broken. The only reason to warn the selecting teams of your robot's problems is so they have the best possible information in order for them to decide whether or not to have you on their alliance. The simple fact that Paul came to inform you of the situation should be a sufficient clue that they will accept if invited.

This seems like an obvious answer, but as some people are still asking the question maybe it isn't.

Siri 30-04-2013 10:59
Re: Ungracious professionalism at internationals?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan Anderson (Post 1269969)
If you're going to decline invitations, you don't need to bother going around telling anyone you're broken. The only reason to warn the selecting teams of your robot's problems is so they have the best possible information in order for them to decide whether or not to have you on their alliance. The simple fact that Paul came to inform you of the situation should be a sufficient clue that they will accept if invited.

This seems like an obvious answer, but as some people are still asking the question maybe it isn't.
This is how I interpreted it, but it's not entirely fair to say that's the only reason. Knowing a team isn't available, for you or for anyone else, really can change selection strategy even on the back of the serpentine. (It's also nice just to save teams the potential freak out and disappointment of "respectfully declines".)

That said, I didn't find what Paul said at all unclear. (I was with 2054 at the time, queued for our last qual.) Particularly the 'if you pick us, it's an automatic backup bot' part makes Alan's reasoning entirely sound.


What I am curious about, entirely separate from the whole eliminations thing in general, is what on Earth was broken that 217 thought it was time to close up shop. They're basically my build gods (like, I worship to them when I can't figure out how to CAD something). It must have been carnage. I am now more terrified of us falling than I even was before.

EricLeifermann 30-04-2013 11:00
Re: Ungracious professionalism at internationals?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan Anderson (Post 1269969)
If you're going to decline invitations, you don't need to bother going around telling anyone you're broken. The only reason to warn the selecting teams of your robot's problems is so they have the best possible information in order for them to decide whether or not to have you on their alliance. The simple fact that Paul came to inform you of the situation should be a sufficient clue that they will accept if invited.

This seems like an obvious answer, but as some people are still asking the question maybe it isn't.
IMHO if you go around telling teams that you are broken you are essentially telling teams that you are declining. And by doing so are saving both teams from being "embarrassed" by both being picked and having to decline due to robot malfunctions, and picking a robot who is malfunctioning.

Now if you say in your announcement to teams that you are broken but will accept in hopes of getting the robot fixed in time, that is different. I was not in my teams pits when Paul came and told my team, even though we were not in the top 15, so I don't know what he exactly said. Paul has addressed it and so has members of 1538 and 1986, I feel the topic of blaming/accusing them is over. People should now talk about how to handle these situations in the future, because it will happen again, it just might not be a big name team like 217.

chantal68 30-04-2013 12:40
Re: Ungracious professionalism at internationals?
 
I appreciate this from the perspective of a learning scouter. Our team just completed our 7th season and it's only been in the last two that we've truly begun any real scouting effort, which is how long I've been involved. It's my personal favorite hat to wear and I want to learn all I can. So thank you for sharing the thought process. I'm finding it absolutely amazing how many different ways of thinking and how many different alliance-building strategies there can be.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon Jack (Post 1268942)
Paul told us that they were broke several times over the course of Saturday morning. In their last match Saturday morning they did look broke. They didn't make a single shot during the match, including auto and they were barely driving. If I remember correctly, they never moved more than 1-2 feet from the pyramid. Clearly, something was wrong. After the match we discussed taking 217 off of our pick list. We had some back and fourth as to where 217 should be on our pick list. In the end they ended up 6th on our list of second round picks. However, the 5 teams ahead of them were taken in the first or second round.

In the end, we rolled the dice with 217 with the knowledge that they were broke. It was a high risk, high reward pick on our part. We would either get them in some state of repair and get a great pick or fail to and struggle along during the elimination tournament. I'm not going to get into numbers and specifics as it's late and irrelevant to this thread. However, we felt that 217 could play a specific role between us and 1986. Another thing we took into account was Paul's coaching ability, lets face it - there's something to be said for 2 state championships, 6 Einstein appearances, 2 world championships, 1 championship finalist and countless regional wins. Some people have a knack for winning, Paul is one of them. With this in mind, we rolled the dice and made the pick.

After alliance selections, I went straight to 217's pit and had a colorful conversation with Paul about how they were broke and how dumb we were for picking them. I told him to get his pit crew to their pit so we could figure out what needed to be fixed and fix it. I also brought in kids from our pit crew to help assist in repairs. It was an all hands on deck situation. Some may say this was a dumb move on our part, but we looked at who the back up robot (2439) would be and felt comfortable in being able to work well with them in the event that we were unable to repair 217. Having 2439 as the backup robot was an insurance policy that eased our mind about picking 217.

Throughout the elims 217 was plagued with issues. In some matches, they didn't shoot everything in auto, in some matches they didn't shoot anything in auto. In some matches their full court never worked consistently. In fact, we even had to call a timeout between our two semi-final matches to allow us more time to repair some electrical issues they were having.

I hope this helps clarify things,
Jon


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