A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I was looking at the alliance selections in the Fall Classic in LA:
http://www.thebluealliance.com/event/2014cafc2
and found it disturbing that so many teams chose their second robot as an alliance member. Even though there were only 18 teams total, many were left out of the 16 robots that were in the semifinals.

The emphasis on fall competitions should be inclusiveness and encouraging new participants. Draft choices that narrow the alliances to just a few teams seems to run counter to that experience. I hope the teams left out at that tournament weren't too disappointed.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

So 1678 is going to come down next year to help expand the field, right? If you look at Saturday's selections, only 4 "B" robots were picked for eliminations, with only one pair on the same alliance (and that as the 4th robot). This may be because there was a much larger field to choose from.

While you're at it, why not comment about allowing teams to compete in both one-day tournaments including eliminations, instead of forcing them to choose one day? (Because, as you might notice, about half of the teams in Sunday's elims had competed in Saturday's eliminations as well.) After all, this is about inclusiveness and encouraging new participants, and I can't think of anything less encouraging than to get walloped by the same team two days in a row, or watching said team walk off with multiple days of awards even if they're not all the same. Or how about barring the "B" robots altogether, resulting in a much smaller event, because you want to include everybody and encourage all the new participants?


I generally consider the offseason events to be emphasizing FUN and TRAINING. As part of those, multiple teams like to swap out drive teams, or do other similar things. And truth to tell, it's rather entertaining to watch Twin A knock Twin B out of an event if they're on opposite sides (plus it gets the ENTIRE team cheering for an ENTIRE match).

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

What you see at some off season events, including Cow Town Throw Down in Kansas City, is that there can be NO picking amongst alliance captains. Therefore they have to pick outside of the top eight, insuring that more people get involved in eliminations. It runs like a normal event, so one round of eliminations after one day of competition. The off season is where teams get to bring in new members and show the what FIRST is really about and making sure that more people get involved will help teams retain those new individuals and give the returning members practice to get back into competition mode for the upcoming season. Most off season events do their best to ensure that things are not so one sided.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

By "people", do you mean individual human beings, or teams?

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I really just meant teams when I first wrote it, by now that I think about it getting more people involved would be a better thing. But yeah I really meant teams.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

How does eliminating picking amongst alliance captains ensure that more teams get involved in eliminations?

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I also find it wrong that teams are picking their second robots, not only on an inclusiveness level (it is the offseason), but from a strategic perspective. Why would you put all your eggs in one basket like that?!?! Unless you're in the final picks and your second (or tenth) robot is actually the best robot for your alliance (not likely true considering the nature of cycles this year), you should spread yourself throughout the bracket.
Worst case is that you play yourself, but who knows when (Could be anywhere, even the finals)?

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I was thinking the same thing...

I don't like where this is going. Not at all. When I bring my team to any competition, I want them to play against the best. That way they get the real test on where they need to improve.

Everyone gets a ribbon...

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I'm always hesitant to judge what happened at an event without having been there myself. There are certain things that are difficult to notice just looking at numbers on Blue Alliance (like who's broken, or what exactly the teams that picked were looking for).

They earned their place in the top eight-- they get to choose their priorities with who their teammates are.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Eliminating picking from within the top 8 forces the captains to pick robots deeper into the field than the would probably normally go. Also it keeps the eliminations matches closer because you don't have all the top teams spread between 2 or 3 really good teams and 5 or 6 okay to mediocre teams. Teams would get involved that might have otherwise been left out of eliminations, because captains were allowed to pick from each other. That's how more teams would get involved. And its the off season, I know you want to go out and compete but the off season is about having fun without the pressure of the normal completion season.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Anyone who thinks a half day of qualification matches, often involving trainee drivers, produces anything close to an accurate top 8 is kidding themselves. I've been to quite a few off-seasons where picking is forbidden in the top 8, and I've encountered more than a few teams that cheered when they found themselves at the #9 or #10 seed at the end of qualifications, rather than as an alliance captain. The system becomes ridiculous.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I am sorry, I am still not following the logic. Let's say there is 32 teams in the field and if you have 8 alliances in the elims, each captain gets to choose their best match (in terms of game play) for their alliance (as they choose 3 more teams to round out their alliance). Then even if Captain 1 chooses team 2, then through cascade, the 9th place team is now the #8 captain. And so on through the picks. All 32 teams will still end up in the elims. I understand that this is the most perfect situation, and most off-season events do not run this way.

Now as a coach trying to bring up my next year's drive team, I would hate to handicap them in picking the best robot regardless of where they are in the standings. I want my drive team to play with the teams that can allow our robot to play the game the way we decided way back on Kick-off in January. This allows my drive team to create the best alliance to face off against other strong alliances. Even if my team was not picked, it is a learning opportunity.

The idea of evening out the field confounds me and goes against how I want to develop my team. Even though it is an off-season event, I want my team to treat it as an in season competition - otherwise why even have elims? Just declare a winner after the quals.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Seconding this. If the top 8 were reliably the strongest 8 robots at competition, then eliminating picking among them for the sake of better competitive balance might be a good idea. Unfortunately, given the extreme variance in rankings at FRC events (especially offseasons), this is not the case, and all you do is make things worse.

As for the OP, I'm not sure what I think about teams picking their own "B" robots for eliminations. On the one hand, yes, it does reduce the number of teams that get to participate in elims. On the other, is that really a compelling reason not to do it, especially when the alternative quite likely reduces the standard of play in eliminations (which is less fun for everyone)? I think this is a question of values, and probably has different answers for different events with different atmospheres.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Okay if there were only 32 teams, and each captain then selected 3 other robots to be on their alliance then yes everybody is all ready participating and therefore not adding any new teams to the mix. But if you have an event with more than 32 teams, like Cow Town Throw Down this year, then that is when it opens the field to more teams. With regards to game play the advantage here is that with the best teams spread evenly thought out the alliance captains then the matches, especially the 1 v 8 and the 2 v 7 matches, will be a lot more competitive. That allows for better training in handling real competition like situations where your team has to make the right decisions or game play strategy in order to win the match. Not just get overwhelmed by an alliance with far superior robots and saying, oh well we tried now lets go home.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Assume 8 alliances are in the elimination rounds, and each alliance selects its own backup robot. If there were 33 teams instead of 32 teams, how many would play in elims under a serpentine system, and how many teams would play in elims under the Cow Town Throw Down System?

Whenever there are more teams than elim spots, someone will always have to sit out. The Cow Town Throw Down System does not open up the field to any more teams than an event which uses a serpentine draft does.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

No, it doesn't. Math doesn't lie (it leaves that to abuse of statistics). 8*4=32. Regardless of how many teams are at the event, if 8 alliance captains pick 3 more teams per alliance, there are still only 32 teams in eliminations. End Of Story.

What disallowing inter-top-8 selection does is it creates some incentive to throw a match. If I'm "on the bubble", say in #7, and I want to be picked by the top team, I'm NOT going to want to win my last match in such an event! What this sort of rule does is it creates a "scorched earth" right from the get-go--but it's the sort of "scorched earth" where if you can play the metagame right, you can win HUGE. See Curie 2010, Match 100, only potentially more devastating, to more than one team.

Oh, and it jumbles up exactly which teams are on which alliances in eliminations. Possibly. Depends on scouting and final drafting order.

As for the rest... Let's just say that you've made a lot of assumptions, very few of which are actually the case. Starting with the assumption that the top 8 are always actually the top 8 robots--I'm going to guess that you haven't heard of a couple of cases where a robot that hadn't passed inspection made it into the top 8 via ranking. There's a reason behind the whole "if you play a match with an uninspected robot, your entire alliance gets a red card" rule. And then assuming that the 1/8 and 2/7 matches are always a blowout in favor of the top alliance; I've seen a #8 alliance take a World Championship. As far as real competition-like situations, I show you qual matches and elim matches in the season events, and note that the no-top-8 picking or some variant was in play for precisely one season or less before it was officially scrapped due to teams playing to lose and manipulate the rankings.


Incidentally, IIRC, a "no top 8" rule would have had little to no effect at Fall Classic on Sunday. A "no alliance captain" would have had even less effect. There were only 4 alliances, and as I recall most of the 2nd robots were down a bit more than 4 or 8 or whatever, though not that far down.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

This is where I have a struggle. MRI was a great showing by some upper level teams in MN. MRI had 33 robots and elims were between 4 alliances. My team (4607) was in the running for a captain's spot until the 7th round (when the opposing ball got lodged in between our catapult and our frame). We lost that match 12? to 97 I believe. But that is inconsequential as we ended up as the #7 seed.

However, at the time the scout team wanted to draft 4536 (correct me if I am wrong inkling) because their robot had a double intake witch mated well with our game play. We are very good at in-bounding and then truss passing to the human player. We could then load 4536 with the human player and 4536 could kiss-pass the ball to 2530 (who was on fire in the later rounds). If we would have finished in the top 4, we would have chosen 4536 and then most likely 2530. No matter where they ended up in the field, it gave our team the best possible alliance. Why should any team be relegated to choose from a select group of teams when the teams that make us better sit as a top 4 or 8?

I truly believe that when you look at off-season events, you need to allow your newbies to develop in a real-game situation. I have coached many sports for many years and I am following what I know is best to create the best situation for my team to develop. In the case of MRI, I wanted to either be with 2175, 2052, 1816, 3883, etc. or face them in the elims. I don't want to have my scout team do all their work just to pick from the least to play against an average alliance each round of elims. It makes no sense. I want my team to play with the best and then face off against the best 16 or 32 teams.

Otherwise, why not just random draw the quals and call it quits at the end? I am still not getting it I guess.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I don't see a problem with playing with your own team. ;)

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

IIRC, 971 was the alliance captain, they had the final say :p.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

In my opinion (and it may be an unpopular one) while an off season event is more fun and laid back then a traditional regional, it is still a competition that we pay for, there is still a tournament structure with Awards, and teams who are crowned champion/winner. If an event wants to run a no seconds bots or no second bots in eliminations or (even worse) no second bots till all "real" bots are picked let the teams decide if they want to pay to go to said event.

I really dislike this thread as at Panther Prowl after all alliances were picked we did have 5 teams who were left out because second bots made it to eliminations: 1649, 2152, 2916, 3502, and 4592. None of these teams seemed to have an issue with not being picked for eliminations because of second bots (atleast from who I have talked to) heck 2152's second robot was actually picked and they weren't.

What it comes down to is plain and simple: To paraphrase a man much smarter then me the F in FIRST does not stand for Fair. We are playing a sport just like any other and sometimes the pendulum swings the other way. Do I wish there was a way for every team to compete at every level while still maintaining a quality of competition? Yes, is that feasible? No.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Okay, looking back over this thread I feel like kind of an idiot, I don't know what I was thinking. Its true there will only be 32 teams, and that no matter what system you use there will still be 32 teams. However, I still feel that a system, just for the off season, where the alliance captains can't pick from each other creates better competition in the elim rounds. In any kind of event there will he the people that get to a top 8 ranked team, that probably shouldn't have been there. But that is still part of the game adapting to who can be on your alliance, and how you use those robots. And yes #8 teams can go out and when championships, but they still had to go out and earn that by playing and using what teams they had available to them. By using this system lower ranked teams have the opportunity to play with higher ranked teams, which allows them to get experience and perhaps grow as a team from the experience, maybe make a friend that normally wouldn't have. There will always be pros and cons to any system, I happen to like the CTTD system for off season, doesn't mean everyone else shares my same opinion.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I'm not sure it's other teams place to tell other teams who they cannot or shouldn't pick. Similar to the adults on drive team and mentor involvement, it should be up to those individual teams to make decisions for their team based on their goals and values.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

1323 was the alliance captain that year, but I'm sure they checked with 971's scouting data. Madtown wasn't very competitive in 2012 like it is every other year.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

The captains still have full control over who the pick as long as its not another alliance captain. At least for CTTD. And I agree it should be up to the individual team members on who to pick, but by forcing the best teams to pick from outside themselves it makes the entire elimination process more competitive and more entertaining for the spectators and the teams involved. And the goal of FIRST is to inspire students to get involved in STEM related carrier fields and activities and to have fun. And when the completion is more competitive, the entire experience is more fun.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

It really depends on the event organizers and how they want to run it. If an event decides to allow additional robots either to fill the event to 24 or make the playing field larger it is their decision. If a team brings more than one robot it is their decision to play there and if a team doesn't bring another robot it is their decision to play there.

Depending on the access to off-season events for teams it should be considered when making the decision. So if its the one event of the year that teams can get to I would favor no additional bots until all single teams have been selected. The nice option is to just cap the event at 24 or say third bots can't play in elims if you want to keep filling it if third bots are needed to get to 24 then its the first ones needed to fill 24.

It also does come down to the teams who are competing with a second robot if they want to select their own robot but we are all adults so that is their decision to make.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Don't worry, you're not an idiot. My intuition also told me that more teams would play in elims under that system. However, I try not to listen to intuition if it doesn't lead me to a well reasoned argument.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Yep, I could tell your team wanted to pick ours, I agree it would have made for very exciting elimination rounds. Our robots are about as different as robots could be, but I think that working together would have been spectacular. If only we could somehow combine our robots into one. A robot with your shooter and our intake system would totally dominate. :D

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Whaaaaaaaaaat?

2012 was 1323's best robot.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Oops! I didn't mean their robot, their robot was fantastic, I meant the Throwdown overall.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I've read this whole thread, and may have missed someone else suggesting this - but wouldn't a better way to include everyone have just been to use six alliances of three, rather than four of four. Give alliance one and two a quarterfinal bye, then proceed like a full elimination.

I agree with the many who don't have a problem with choosing your own B-team, and I also agree with the many who point out the problems with a no-captains policy. Keep it free - works best that way.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

We had this system at our offseason competition. It worked really well, and there were no alliances with two robots from the same team, in fact there were a couple of instances of teams playing AGAINST their second robots. We lost to our practice bot in the finals (of course, they were allianced with 1678 and 2122 :rolleyes: )

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I believe someone called an audible on that one. Normal conditions would have been to do just that (especially looking at the posted rules).

Of course, normal methodology at Fall Classic is that the QFs are single-elimination, so it's 3/6 and 4/5, then 1 and 2 face the winners in typical fashion.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I'm sorry that you have to get so angry about a comment based on the information available on Blue Alliance. There is no indication in the Sunday information that the field was somehow of limited size. (And Saturday's info shows only the elimination alliances.) A more measured comment explaining the situation rather than lashing out is much more appropriate on a web forum. Please consider your language and tone when you enter a discussion here. It sounds like your anger is better aimed at the event organizers, but rationally and calmly discussing the options with them about how to make it a better event.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I see the off season events as a different type of event than the Regionals and World Championships. And I see FIRST and FRC as MUCH different than the NFL, NCAA or even the National Federation Of State High School Associations. To put is simply we are NOT playing a sport like any other. The primary purpose of FIRST is to build enthusiasm for STEM and related educational activities. The primary (or even secondary) purpose is NOT to promote competition or entertainment. Focusing solely on competition rules and winning competitions can go to far and detract from the primary purpose of FIRST. First and foremost, we MUST always encourage as many students (and mentors) as possible to participate in an activity that directly leads to improved STEM education which in turn will lead to improve economic outcomes not only for the involved students but also for the national and global economy. If you're not on board with that concept yet, I suggest digging much deeper into the principles of FIRST and why Dean Kammen started this program.

(And note that I am not anti-sport. I won league individual and team championships and set a school record at a NCAA Division 1 school as well as competing in several national championships.)

That said, that means that we need to consider during the off season how might we increases the involvement and enthusiasm of potential new participants. Many students and even teams are new to FIRST in the fall before the Kickoff. Why not change the rules or at least the informal agreements about alliance selections as one way?

I like the rule of not being able to draft your 2nd robot unless none other are available. As for not drafting an alliance captain, there are two solutions. The first is have a coaches meeting beforehand and ask if the coaches agree that the competition is informal enough that they might agree to this. This year, I'm pretty sure that they would have said no at Chezy Champs and yest at Capital City where we competed. I have no problem with these different outcomes. A second approach is to have a rule that if a team was in the Top 8 going into the last match and they lose, then they can't be drafted in the first round, or alternatively, by the top 4 alliances. That will eliminate any real benefits from trying to game the rankings.

I think we need to keep in mind the spirit of what we're trying to achieve in FRC. We're not trying to build the De Le Salle football machine. We're trying to educate the best engineers, scientists and other professionals and technical workers that we can.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

It may not be a team's place to TELL another team what to do, but that does not mean that another team might express an opinion and try to persuade other teams what to do. We don't operate in isolation, and we may have a different opinion about the larger goal of the organization.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I was responding to the fact that without having ever been to the event, or apparently viewing the publicly available team list (follow the event link from the TBA page, and it's one more link to the spreadsheet), you had the appearance of criticizing the teams at the event for making choices that they chose to make. I believe a close analogy would be the "scorched earth" debate, particularly if triggered by someone from far away--say it happened at a Sacramento offseason and I, never having been to such an event, complained from down here. So, I responded from the standpoint of someone who WAS at the event, both days, working WITH the organizers to keep the event going. Trust me, it was a lot harder and a lot more frustrating than it should probably have been. Reference the thread on the event for some of the issues we had at various times.

Also, I did note (in the "spoiler") that I was not being entirely serious in the second paragraph. Some of it was intended as a "where does this sort of questioning stop", by showing the logical continuation of your stated reason for offseasons. For the record, the goal of the Fall Classic differs somewhat from your reasoning; for convenience:
I guess some folks can't tell the difference between someone being angry and someone being sarcastic, even when the "sarcasm tags" are in use. It was a little bit of both, to be fair, and I did significant rewriting to tone it down from the original post. (On the topic of discussing with the event organizers--if you have a problem, real or perceived, with how an event is run, or something that happens with an event, shouldn't you contact the organizers, prior to posting on CD, as much as possible?)

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I don't see the equivalence. Teams choose to decline when they are picked, they don't choose to not get picked. There's a reason that FRC only allows each team to bring one robot to an event. Having a powerhouse teams build 2 clones of their robot then proceed to pick both of them and steamroll the competition is fun for no one and directly opposes the idea of cooperative competition, instead it is only competition.

As you stated in a post of your own, seeing a teams A robot, and B robot face off in elims is great to see, we all agree on that. The concern that he is expressing is not that these teams have 3 robots in elims, the concern is that these robots are all ending up on the same alliance instead of pairing up with other teams and cooperating with teams that aren't their own.

I think this is a perfectly valid concern, it's somewhat of an unspoken rule that picking your own team isn't the most GP thing to do. Offseason competitions are not about winning, they are about giving teams experience, and the best way for new teams to gain experience is to play with veteran teams, not against them.

You specifically said you were serious in your first paragraph. I think he was safe in assuming that you were in fact serious. When someone discusses improvements you can make "then do it better yourself" isn't often seen as the most friendly, or mature response.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I couldn't tell what part was sarcasm and which part was anger. (And sarcasm is often hidden anger.) It's the problem with Internet postings--you can't hear tone of voice.

As for the complaints about the event, I wasn't the one complaining about the event--it appeared that you were. I was thinking about the broader issue of selecting off season alliances, and this situation just highlighted this bigger issue. It made me think much more about how we need to focus on that during our alliance selection at off season events.

254 told us that they chose 1114 at IRC because they has already allied with 469 and they hadn't been with 1114 before. I thought that was a tremendous attitude. We are all both competitors and alliance mates because of the FRC format. We should try to join with as many teams as possible in various situations. It sure makes it much more fun! http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/im...es/biggrin.gif

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Note: Not all of the teams that had two robots were powerhouses. Matter of fact, only two (or three, counting Saturday) would normally be considered even close. (A third/fourth team is in some years and is not in other years.) And of those teams, at least two had distinct differences between the A and the B robots. (One B team just so happened to be running BETA hardware, for example.)

The equivalence is this: It's something that many people disagree with, that is a valid play under event rules. Therefore, if someone is complaining, they really have no solid footing other than "I think it's not fair". OK, you don't like it, we get it. But we happen to have our own opinion. In this case, event rules happen to differ from FRC rules. You don't like it, but the event organizers chose to allow it, so it's perfectly valid, regardless of whether you like it or not.

And the other example of a "solid footing" that I mentioned above is "It's not GP". And, different teams have different agendas for offseasons. Obviously, yours differs a little bit from the teams that were there. I can't speak for them as to why they picked their twins but as alliance captains, they can pick any team that isn't already picked.

I also specifically stated that I was NOT serious in my second paragraph. Therefore, that's not a safe assumption to make, unless of course you happen to not have read that far. (Which people have been known to do, but I'm thinking that's not the case here.) And the response was not "do it better yourself", it was "come down here and give us a hand with a lack of teams if you want to comment". As I specifically noted, 1678's HP coach would have been especially welcome due to mass human player foulage.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

True on the tone of voice. Incorrect on the complaining about the event--I got that out of my system at the event, mainly about specific aspects that made life a lot more difficult than it needed to be (and had a concrete fix that will be in place next Fall Classic if it's needed for the game). I wasn't complaining about the event, but about the response (and the response type), reference below. Partly noting that it didn't go far enough to meet the suggested emphasis/goal/experience... but that got into the sarcasm/satire range.

Referencing the post that opened the thread, the bold parts seem to indicate some complaining/concerns; the rest sort of emphasizes those as more on the complaint side, at least to me. Sort of a "These teams/this event just don't get it, they aren't working the way they should be working, I hope it worked out but I don't think it did", if you see where I'm going. Which, if you look at it for a couple of minutes, might look rather familiar, though usually it's expressed on a much different topic. And the usual response is something to the effect of "Says who, it's run differently from you but still in a valid way, don't try to dictate how another team/event is run..." [I think y'all can fill in the rest if you're so inclined].

Incidentally, I think I can answer the second bold portion for two teams. One declined due to a sidecar issue (fried, I think they said); the other due to unknown electrical gremlins that they didn't want to burden their alliance with, or something to that effect. I think any disappointment there would be directed within the teams, as in disappointment at their own issues, which would be an issue at a regional as well, not at being left out of eliminations due to twin-picking.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

As I mentioned, and you acknowledged, this doesn't strictly apply to powerhouse teams. Teams do not learn by allying with themselves. Whether or not you agree, it is the responsibility of successful teams to help bring up the competition around them. FRC is not about winning, it's about bringing up the overall level of competition across the field. Neither experienced teams, nor inexperienced teams benefit from pairing with their own team. Independent of team ability, it's not beneficial for them to ally with themselves.
With gracious professionalism being one of the main points of FIRST I don't think it is an element of competition to be taken lightly. It's not about whether or not I like it or if I think it's fair. It's about what's better for the future or FIRST and teams that participate in it. Sure it's not against FRC rules to refuse to speak to other teams, but I don't think anyone finds that to be a good idea. I think I've made my point that it is clearly in everyone's interest to work with other teams rather than against them.
Hence why we're not replying to commentary in your second paragraph. I believe everything we've addressed has been in response to your first paragraph.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

My first paragraph should probably be taken as "We didn't have enough teams. You apparently didn't even look at the other set of data from the same event. Are you guys going to sit at home and say 'you guys are doing it wrong' and NOT come down here next year to show us how you think it should be done?" Meanwhile it seems like most of the commentary has been "It seems like these teams/this event did it wrong" vs "It's how they want to play, let 'em play that way!"


I don't necessarily agree that it's not beneficial to ally with your own team's B robot. It can be quite beneficial, in terms of winning the event (and all the effects of winning an offseason event), assuming that that actually happens, due to having not one but two of the X robots on the alliance being controlled by good friends. I see it as little different than two collaborating teams with the same robot running on the same alliance. You could (at 4-team-alliance events) sit one of the two and end up with one perfectly good robot and one spare robot that can equal it if necessary. There are some other decent reasons, most likely, and I'm sure there are some negatives too, but each team at the offseason that has a twin robot has to make that decision. (In this case, including the team that ran two robots as well as supplying most of the volunteers!)


As far as the GP/non-GP: Usually, if someone comes out and says "That's un-GP", they're complaining about a legal strategy that they just happen not to like, or something similar, and often have adjusted it to fit their own definition. 9/10 times, there is no real way to call "un-GP" on a situation without showing up as being the opposite of GP yourself. But very rarely, there is that one time. This might be that time, it might not be.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I think the whole of this thread comes down to this, What is the spirit in which the event was organized? Was it meant to be an all out competition, who is the best, who could put together the best 1, or two, robot(s) and play the best game, or was it to encourage involvement in FIRST. If its the former then by all means the rules should be pick whoever you want and may the best alliance when. But if it is the latter, which I suspect is the case for most off season events, then there should be some limit to who you can and cannot pick for eliminations. And that decision belongs to those that organize the event on how best to encourage involvement of other teams. If you don't like the rules, then you don't have to go, find some other event to go to. Rather than going to an event then complaining about it here on CD or anywhere else.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I'm not quite following your argument, but I think that I'm getting from you that if picking your own robot to win the competition is the best strategy we should be able to do it. And I am generally disagreeing. That off season competition was not at the level of IRI or Chezy Champs in prestige, and having 2 separate days of competition clearly diluted it even further.

As a competitive athlete, I knew when certain competitions were very important, and other ones where I could work on different strategies or work with my teammates or even friends to improve their competitive outcomes. Not every "competition" is of the same importance or consequences. Rarely are off season events of significant importance, and never of the same consequence as a Regional or District.

Because backing from the competitive fires requires mutual agreement among all of the teams--it can't be instituted by a team on their own for very obvious reasons--the event organizers need to dictate the tone of the competition.

At the Fall Classic, two alliances on Sunday had dual team robots. Why couldn't they have swapped in some manner? Teams are missing the entire point of the FRC alliance structure if they think that all of the benefits need to accrue within a single team playing among "good friends." Why can't you have "good friends" on other teams? We most certainly would rather play with other teams than with ourselves. I honestly don't see any pluses of playing together within our own team vs learning even more about alliance management with other teams (and having 2 drive teams learning similar lessons). You do NOT learn alliance management if you have 2 robots from the same team. (And why not double the chance that you'll be on an winning alliance by splitting your team?) Alliance management has been critical to our recent success--maybe the single most important one.

And your right, most of the commentary has been contrary to how it played out. That's the point of this post. Regardless of the shortage of teams, it could have been managed better.

And more more importantly, we can hope that other off season events think more explicitly about this issue.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

There have been some good points made in this threads but I think we are hitting a point where the discussion is getting pointless as it is starting to come down to what works for team xxxx doesn't always work for team yyyy.

Every year teams compete at events (official and offseason) for various reasons and there isn't one blanket reason that will work for every team. Even at regionals/districts you will meet teams who aren't there to win on the field. Not every offseason event is viewed the same way by every team. Even at a pretty laid back event there will be teams who are there with the intent to do their best and are aiming to win and there are those who are just training new students or giving new ones a chance. If a team wants to do so by picking a certain robot that is their decision even if is is their own.

If you really have an issue go talk to the event organizers instead of debating here on CD where it is pointless and it isn't hard to tell what teams you are referring to.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I agree in general. We didn't go to this event, but we also can't contact every off season event and inquire about what they plan on doing. CD is where we can have a broader discussion about this issue and hopefully raise awareness for all of the event organizers in a common arena. And event organizers don't make their decisions in a vacuum--they listen to what others are saying from outside. There's no reason not to try to influence their decisions if you so desire.

And finally these teams and events are actually part of a bigger FIRST organization. It is the organization, not the individual events, that should set the overall tone and objectives. Again that means that we are all part of that conversation and we should comment on those that we think deviate from that tone and objective.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I'm going to add a couple stories from two of the off-seasons we attended/ran this year.

The first was TRI (Texas Robotics Invitational), this event was provided free of charge to every team that registered and was built to promote the younger and less experienced teams in the state. We wanted everyone to be able to play in eliminations because for some teams this may be there first time being on an elimination alliance and that's an important part of the FRC experience and we felt we could give it to more teams. For that reason we limited the event to no B robots and exactly 32 teams (8 x 4 team alliances). We also messed with the alliance picking a lot. In Texas there is a pretty distinct group every year of who are the top robots, regularly 118, 148, 624, 1477, we love the top teams but it's easy to see how a final at 4+ events that puts the same 3 or 4 teams against each other every time could be discouraging to other teams. To try to even out the alliances and not have 1-8 and 2-7 matches so lopsided we instituted this system.

For the most part this system removes the incentive to seed 9th or 10th because you don't know who will be picking 1st. It also keeps most of the elimination matches closer in score. We also required that the 4th robots play in at least 1 match each round. Again this event was designed to encourage growth in the state and provide teams with a different experience. This is not how all off-seasons should work, and definitely not how regionals should work.

The second off-season I want to talk about is RoboReboot. This was a much smaller event. It started out with 18 robots including a few B robots. The plan was to have 6 alliances of 3 teams and give 1 & 2 a bye. Their ended up being a team that had mechanical problems and wouldn't be able to play in eliminations. When this was discovered myself and Andrew Lynch (head mentor for 2587) decided to pull both our B robots from eliminations to make even alliances and allow all the teams to play. That was the decision we made and it would be perfectly reasonable for teams to make a different choice, countless factors play in to such a decision.

From event to event there are going to be multiple factors that play into how everything is run and in general all you can do if you don't like something is provide constructive feedback to the hosts. If you find out that some part of the event that your team doesn't like will be in place again at future events, you may not want to go to that event again or volunteer with the event and help improve it.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Wow! I really like TRI's system for eliminations, keeps things interesting and eliminates incentives to try and throw matches. I really like this system. Is there any other event that uses this system?

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

What I'm saying, and I'll be quite clear about this is: If you, as an alliance captain, think that picking your own B robot is the best way to win the event, that is your choice, if it is allowed by the competition. In this case, it was allowed. Therefore, it is the team's prerogative to pick whoever they want to.

In regards to the prestige, I'm well aware of that. Consider this: Prior to last year, Fall Classic didn't even fill up. Last year, it filled up for the first time. This year, the organizers had a decision: One-day event with more teams or two-day event--but most of the teams in L.A. aren't ready for a 2-day offseason. So they opted for two one-day events, back-to-back, with the option to attend both. Teams that wanted to do both could, teams that only wanted to do one could. The robot cap was set per day. Incidentally, it seems that most teams around here prefer Saturday for their one-day events.

I wouldn't say that the competition was diluted--if anything, the matches were more intense on Sunday. You weren't there, so I suggest watching the archived webcasts. (They aren't linked on TBA; you'll have to find the thread for the event.)


For one thing, ya can't count. All four alliances had one pair of twins, even if they were fraternal, and the fifth twin was split between #1 and #4. ;) :p Anyways, back to the statement I would rather make: True, there are a lot more benefits to playing with other teams. But here's the thing: Maybe those teams either didn't see those, or just wanted to have some fun. It's not your team's place to tell my team that they're doing X wrong, unless they are actually, in point of actual fact (NOT opinion), doing it wrong. You can tell them that that's not the way you'd do it, but they've got to make the final decision on whether they see things the same way.

So, rather than commenting on CD, are you going to contact SCRRF and tell them that? Not many of them are on CD, or at least I'm not aware that more than one or two are. Just remember, before you contact them, that 1678 has not been to a single Fall Classic, I'm sure for good reasons including travel distance.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Will a former member do? I went with my new team, 5100, as the drive coach. I'll agree with some the above comments that splitting the event into two days, in addition to the number of B-bots, ended up creating some interesting dynamics that discourage me from ever wanting to attend again.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

If you're on a new team, that doesn't *quite* count. Now, I will grant that you'll have a lot of the same point of view as your previous team--but a previous team with nearly a decade of experience and a second-year team will have very different points of view of the same event for the most part. I did talk to one of the 5100 mentors as the team was helping tear down the field, and they did have a good time, at least from his point of view.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I echo Allen Gregory's points, there are multiple events in Texas set up to be more inclusive of all teams, the ones I've personally attended being the Texas Robotics Invitational and the Robot Remix. In both of these, the captains are not allowed to pick within the top 8, and TRI had the added restrictions outlined in his post earlier. Having talked to several teams with various backgrounds, from champions like 1477 to the newest rookies in our school district, everyone has had a positive experience with these events.

In addition, we have the 2-day event Texas Robot Roundup, which is based on a purely competitive stance - ever since its incarnation, TRR has provided a great event with some of the most exciting matches I've ever seen. There were a few "B-bots," that were being used by pre-rookie teams to give them a glimpse of what competition is like (note, this is slightly different from the scenario I see being addressed in this thread, however it is similar enough). I believe one or two did make it to eliminations, but again, there wasn't any voiced concerns about this happening or it being any form of injustice to other teams.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I like it too.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I don't think you're getting what I'm saying. Individual teams can't make the decision at these events on how they select alliances that will best promote the goals of FIRST. It's the prerogative of FIRST, regional directors and event organizers who work with FIRST. It's as though you're saying that each NFL team should get to choose what rules they want to play by.

My point about the alliance is that they paired bots from the same team instead of mixing it up. (I wasn't bothering to be precise--I was making a general observation which you confirmed.)

Finally, you're also not getting my point about this thread (and ignoring my earlier post): I'm only using the Fall Classic as an example of a larger issue about how I think many off season event might be organized to better encourage STEM programs. (Note that I didn't use "Fall Classic" in the title, on purpose.) I'm not going to go through one by one contacting each event to ask them to change. CD is the best way to reach a broad audience.

In my three decades of public policy work I've generally found that when someone says that a message is better delivered privately to individuals one by one, they really mean the message may get out of their control, influence events and lead to an outcome that they won't like. I'll keep posting publicly on CD...

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

And I saw that 5100, a rookie team that was 4-3, was left out of the elim rounds so that second robots could ally with their teammates. Doesn't sound like 5100 is too encouraged to go back...:(

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I won't get into the debate since I think pretty much all points have already been stated multiple times but I don't think FIRST should be setting the standards for off seasons. Those are individually managed by offseason coordinators and therefore they should be able to play with whatever rules they want. NFL may make rules for football, but that doesn't mean me and my friends are going to play by exactly those rules.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I have had a very long week so sorry for the late response

We agree here like I said in my original message offseason are more laid back and fun so we are on the same page.

I still agree with you though I am unsure what part of my message brought this on.

Once again no disagreement, still curious as to why I am being paraphrased the credo of an organization that, according to our delphi profiles, I have been involved with more then twice as long as you have.

Fixed how to spell Dean's last name for you. Trust me I get this concept, and I have been awarded for it multiple times by FIRST, I apologize if some people see my response thus far, or further on as personal attacks or belittlement but I do not like to be demeaned or patronized especially relating to what a group that has shaped my entire adult life means.

I think here is where I will stop agreeing with your statements and begin directly disagreeing. Offseason events are NOT official events. Offseasons are independently run events that vary wildly from each other. IRI changed (or fixed) major rules about this game, Panther Prowl added a end game, TRI had a very different way of doing alliance selections, you will never get ALL offseasons to agree to any rule unless explicitly stated in the manual, and even then an event can change the rule. I will come back to this later as I get further into my response but I need to tackle a few more parts before coming back.

You bring up that we need to think of ways to increase involvement of future participants: At our offseasons we had a majority rookie drive team for our second robot, and many other Florida teams also ran with new students, to show them how exciting not only watching but actually competing with a robot can be. One could actually argue that your idea of inclusion has a bigger implication on the regular season, so following your idea of getting more teams to compete, MORT and MORT Beta, as well as Goodrich and More Martians, should gracefully bow out every year of competing in eliminations as they are quite literally taking up a shot for someone other team to attend Championship.

Now we get into a logistical/logical problem my team this year built triplets alongside 1251, two competition robots and a practice robot. We took the practice robot to offseason events, should both our teams be unable to select that practice robot or only 179 because we paid for it to be there?

What if they legitimately lose? Should a team be punished for being outplayed, breaking down, or just legitimately not syncing with a randomly selected alliance? Or are we now working under the assumption that every team who is in the top 8 near the end of a competition is legitimately one of the top 8 robots at the competition, because anyone who has seen these events play out know that that is not true.

And here is where I come back to my point above, one of the first things I learned when working on a real world engineering project in a real company is that engineering is a business, now that seems like common sense but sometimes people forget that. If you are going to make a product you are constantly competing to make it better, cheaper, prettier, lighter, and/or cooler then the guy(or company) next to you. Why do I bring this up? because as I said all these off seasons are different and run by different people, if they want to change the rules let teams decide if they want to pay to be there, I even said as much in my original comment. For example if any rules were applied to a second robot to make it different from a normal robot, I wouldn't bring it, I don't want the new students to get confused as to what will happen come the real season, and I don't want to deal with explaining to my students that despite their hard work they have to be segregated and applied different rules to them.

Are you kidding me? Are you honestly suggesting that teams when making alliances should think about what promotes the goals of FIRST? There is a very good reason as to why their is 2 awards independent of the tournament that veteran teams can receive for the promoting the goals of FIRST and they are announced AFTER the winners, because they are more important. And yes believe it or not each NFL team does get to choose at least what conditions they play by, or have you not noticed that we have stadiums and domes?

+1

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Not for off-season events. Off-season events are completely separate and the organizers should be able to do whatever they want to do. If you don't like how an event is ran and can't work with the organizers to change it, then just don't go - or start your own event. Pretty simple.

Then don't. Aren't there like 4 other off-season events in California alone? I think it's pretty cut and dry. If 5100 had a bad experience then they shouldn't go back.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Seconded. Off-season event organizers should feel free to do what they please at their events. Here in New England we have a variety of events with their own unique game or alliance selection twist: fully random, random first round, random second round, standard serpentine, 1-8/1-8, no picking in the top 8, 18 elimination alliances, etc. There are events some teams prefer not to attend for one reason or another but that is their choice.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I can't disagree with you more. Again, you're missing my point. This is not a decision that should be left to individual teams. It is a decision that should be made at an organizational level, either the event organizer or at the Regional or FIRST HQ level. Individual teams cannot effectively make an individual "disarmament" decision to avoid making certain alliance decisions. It must be a mutual agreement. At the international level, that's why we have treaties--actions by individual nations trying to influence world events are rarely effective unless there is a treaty.

As you well know, it is almost pointless to email individual event organizers--they'll simply blow me off. And I can't physically go to discuss this issue with each and every event organizer. CD is where issues can be aired publicly and where a larger

I'm actually not trying to call out individual teams, because teams usually will respond to the rules and intent of the event organizer. I'm a bit unhappy that certain teams chose to select their own B bot, but the event organizers had not stepped in to prohibit that. So they did what they thought was in their own best interest. This is an issue at other events--I just chose a salient recent example. Unfortunately what was in an individual team's best interest was not in the best interest of the region as a whole in my opinion. (See T^2's comment above for confirmation--and I know him personally and know how extremely dedicated he is.) As a professional economist I frequently must address the divergence between individual self interest and societal best interest. This is just such a case.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I do see your point but at the same time I think that oversteps the autonomy that event organizers have in running their events. If you (and teams who attended the event but were not in the elimination rounds) have not contacted the organizing committee there is little to no point in referencing a specific event and hoping for change.

If the issue is addressing "the divergence between individual and self interest and societal best interest" what is your opinion on teams at official events only picking the best teams for elimination partners when in the interest of FIRST as a whole the argument can be made to instead pick teams who aren't the best or don't have a history of participating in eliminations?

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Are you saying that the choice of what robots to invite to form an alliance shouldn't be a team decision? That's what it sounds like. I don't think it's what you mean, so I'm obviously not understanding you properly.

Are you saying that an individual team is unable to decide not to ally with another team? That's not true in general. I thought your principal complaint was with the teams who chose to invite their "B" team, and such choices are most definitely under the individual control of the alliance captain.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Alright humor me since my response to you previously was skipped over lets talk hypothetically here: In your mind what would solve this issue? How will taking away a teams free will to pick who they want to ally with solve any issues? In my mind taking away my teams free will can only end badly for those who try.

Have you tried? Honestly tried? I have never been ignored by event organizers when I have emailed them, heck I heard from Panther Prowl before I could email them my concerns. We are not your typical group of individuals in FIRST if you want to talk to people in charge their is not a chain of endless bureaucracy to crawl through, their emails go right to them and you here back promptly.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

On the whole, I tend to believe that it is the team's responsibility to follow the rules as written, and the event organizer's responsibility to make sure the rules as written match the rules they intend for the event. FIRST has plenty of other stuff to do that doesn't involve regulating offseason events. Namely, designing a new game and improving the part of the program they are directly involved in. I don't see the benefit for the cost of imposing restrictions on what offseasons can or can't be.

There's also the fact that my opinion differs from your opinion which probably differs from the rest of the 30000+ other people involved in FRC. What you see as a priority might not be my priority, and vice versa. You might hold equal opportunity as your main goal for an offseason event, while I might prefer to train in new drivers and students. I trust that you are trying to act in the way you see best to grow your team and spread STEM education in your community, and I expect you to trust me. Even if you don't, it's frankly incredibly patronizing and insulting to tell my (hypothetical) team and event that we're somehow doing it wrong by playing inside the rules as written. I am more aware of the needs of my team and community than you are. You might have an interesting, valuable perspective, but it isn't you who lives and works in my community.

I think everyone in this thread has the right thing in mind-- spread our enthusiasm for robotics and STEM in our communities. Change the culture. All that stuff that gets repeated every year and, at least for me, doesn't lose an ounce of meaning. I understand the desire to bring the system to it's "optimal" state-- we all want teams to succeed and the program to grow. But if forcing the system into what you see as "optimal" means removing the ability of teams and individuals to make and learn from their mistakes, we're losing something very core to and human about the program. I don't want an algorithm deciding who my match partners are. I want the kids I work with to do their scouting, interact with other teams, exercise their decision making faculties, and yes, sometimes screw up. It's a lot better for them to misjudge here rather than in industry.

You are free to run your events as you see fit, just as you are free to run your team as you see fit. I won't hold it against you even if you choose to run an event style that I disagree with. I might not attend, but that's my domain, not yours. I expect the same courtesy. We're all passionate people about the program, and even if we occasionally make mistakes we have the greater good of the situation at heart.

On a side note, I'm really getting tired of the roundabout going on in this thread. I have read all the posts in this thread. Specifically Mr. McCann, I believe that I and the majority in this thread have read your posts and understand what you are arguing for. I (and others), just happen to disagree with it. Repeating your point and a slightly altered argument will not change my opinion. I've read your post and disagree with it. I don't think that means you're entirely wrong, and I don't presume to make any judgement on your character based on that. However, repeating yourself in the manner expressed in this thread doesn't (in my opinion) represent well a professional economist. Let it go.

Edit: If anyone would like to discuss this subject with me, I'm not going to add any more fuel to this thread. PM me.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

This is incorrect. 5100 was the #3 pick of the #3 alliance. Whether or not the last sentence is in fact correct because of any other items is an open question, however.

I'm simply putting this out to correct misinformation.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

This is incorrect. We were the #3 robot, and therefore the #2 pick.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Yeah, I realized that a couple hours ago but wasn't at my computer. The irony just hit me.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I think that it's pretty well established that people simply don't agree on the priorities of off season competitions.

That's that

/thread

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I'm making a point about offseason events vs official Regionals and Districts. Off season events are often less competitive and more "friendly" and I'm arguing for a different set of rules in that case.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Which is too bad to the detriment of achieving the goals of FIRST. I'm sorry that so many of you can't reexamine your own assessments and ask real questions about how you think you'll get to where you want to head. As Yogi Berra said: If you don't know where you're going, you might not get there.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

This thread has made me rethink trolling on the internet, maybe just maybe the people honestly believe what they are saying.....

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

But what is that point? When presented with specific questions about it, you seem to be unwilling to answer directly. It sounds like you want to add restrictions in order to increase competitiveness and reduce "friendliness". I have to assume that you're putting the word in quotes because you have a specific meaning in mind, and I will guess that you are referring to teams picking their friends as alliance partners.

My basic problem is that I can't follow your argument to a conclusion that makes sense to me. It would help me if you could clearly state what your ultimate goal is, so that I can appropriately fill in the blanks in what you're saying in order to align what I'm reading with that goal. Then if I agree with the goal, I can better form my questions about how you are trying to reach it. Of course, it's possible -- or even likely -- that I disagree with the goal, in which case I will simply say so.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I think "It's like deja-vu, all over again." might be a more appropriate Yogi Berra quote for this thread.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

But you're arguing about a specific offseason and not offseasons as a whole. You can't define each offseason's intent because you're not on the planning committee for every offseason in the world. That's the difference between FIRST official events and offseasons - FIRST defines the standard for districts/regionals/CMP and the event organizers have to stick to them. Offseason event organizers have the option to choose their priority in what type of event they'd like to do. Most times, that is pretty clearly stated.

For example: I'll tell you about something we did at MKM this year, because we had EXACTLY the number of teams for 4-team alliances. We wanted everyone to have a full alliance, so basically asked, "Hey, if you're outside of the top 8, and you're not busted, please don't decline." That way, no alliance was screwed out of a 4th robot unless there was a serious issue.

If we allowed declines but still encouraged 4-team alliances, a team could decline #1 to 'force' their way as the 4th robot on the #8 alliance. It was our intent to get everyone onto an alliance for elims, but it just wouldn't work if people declined to try and make their way onto their chosen alliance as a 4th. Cutting the 4th robots entirely would have put 8 teams out of play, which we really didn't want to do. We wanted everyone to play, but we didn't want shady backwards declining taking advantage of that.

Did someone come up to me and tell me 'your declining rule is bull$#!t'? Absolutely.
(To be fair, it was a friend, and they were half-kidding).

But we stated the intent and we went with it, because it's our offseason. Quite honestly other than that one comment, we didn't hear anything negative about it. We wanted everyone to get a chance to play. If we'd had 30 teams it wouldn't have been an issue, but it was a special case we had to adapt for. We decided what our priority was, stated it, and went with it.

Another offseason might have made a different choice and that's entirely their right to.
Each event determines its own way.

If you disagree with me, that's fine. I'm happy to take feedback, as that was a day-of-decision that we made through several discussions as a planning committee. But unless you're planning your own offseason, you're not going to be able to decide the 'point' of the event, event-specific rule changes, or the intent of them.

I think it seems like what you're asking, is a disclaimer describing an offseason event's priority/purpose so you can decide where you want to go/what events to skip. Is that not effectively communicated by offseasons in your area? It seems pretty well-stated around us, at least.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I'm confused to why it's not ok to inspire and educate students while still treating a competition as such....a competition?

Maybe it's a good thing to teach and show our students how to both win and lose graciously?

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I really like what you guys did at your event Libby. I just think that all the arguments here in Delphi have been said on this topic. If you don't like the event rules don't go, if you like them go. Find the off season event that has the same philosophy that you do. Its that simple.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

It's my offseason, we'll do what we want..

I've watched this from afar, but with Libby's post I feel the need to add my post. That event had a goal of getting everyone into the finals. They got that to happen, it's a great thing.

I did a similar thing, I went to the two top alliance Captains and said. "You think you are hot, pick two bottom teams, you make it to Finals, I'll buy dinner." Read about the details Chapter 9 of my autobiography on "How to spend $176.50 at McDonalds".

It's an off season, we are all here to push robotics...

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

This has been getting to me for a while now, but I thought the thread would die down earlier...

Repeating yourself over and over again and trying to force your opinion upon another is not a trait of "gracious professionalism," which is another goal of FIRST. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and there comes a point where one is no longer rationally discussing it and listening to the points of others' but treating it as a one-way street. I am absolutely certain everyone here has the best interests of FIRST in mind. And there is a difference in how each offseason likes to do things.

To use an extreme example, if the goal is to be more inclusive, then why, during the official season, don't the top teams at a regional pick some rookies or teams that haven't been to eliminations before, in order to give them the learning experience and excitement of being in the knockout stages? The answer is simple; everyone is trying to compete and if the captain believes that team will not give the alliance the best possible shot of winning the event, they won't be picked. Now if an offseason decides their goal is to model an official competition, then it is the CHOICE of the captain to pick whoever they would like, and it is not another teams' place to approve/disapprove of their pick. If the offseason event's goal does not match the specific goals of your own team, that's fine, everyone is acting in good faith towards the best interests of their team - but no one is forcing you to attend the competition.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

It's been done, I've seen it happen, pretty stunned expressions on the captain saying "We Accept", and I've watched some teams then rebuild robots because they are suddenly going to Worlds.

All teams are not greedy about the banners.

And just aside, flying the "GP" slogan doesn't cut it. Jane has multiple posts on that, when I see her post about "GP" I'll worry about it.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Emphasis mine. I was intruiged by your assumption that eliminations experience leads to learning, so I did some digging. I looked at a number of second bots that 254 has worked with over the past few years and looked at the eliminations histories of these teams. Though I didn't crunch numbers (in part due to a lack of a metric to compare elimination records), it seems that teams who played with us as a second bot did not seem to have an effect on their elimination records at other events: teams that won in the past kept on winning, teams that never went far into elims stayed that way (heck, one team hasn't seen eliminations since playing with us :ahh: ).

But a few disclaimers:

1. Learning could take multiple forms, but the easiest way to try and measure that is eliminations records.
2. I looked at the second bots from regionals/offseasons for my dataset, because I knew that they generally have less eliminations experience than us or our partner. I also picked the teams 254 played with because I had experience with the teams (which may have opened the door to bias).
3. I wasn't really sure how to measure elimination histories of teams, but the basic metric I used was to count how many times they made it to the semifinals or later each year. This metric is less than ideal, because it weighs wins and semis appearances equally. A fairer metric would be to do something like districts.
4. I did this counting by hand, so it is not very precise. If I were to do this again with greater rigor (which I may well do if I have time), I would probably look at Michigan for cleaner metrics/data.

Tl;dr- Playing in elims once with really good teams doesn't seem to have an effect on future performance, though a more rigorous analysis is needed.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I wasn't trying to imply that teams who don't do that are greedy for banners. I was saying that in my opinion, and experience with other teams that I've worked with in scouting/alliance selection (during the regular season), this has been the case; to pick the best possible team that fits the strategy.

That's true, but when I see teams like 4814 describe how much they learned from getting the opportunity to play with teams like 1114 and 2056, I get the impression that some teams feel very inspired. Obviously, this isn't the norm, as your data shows, but every once in a while, it will have an effect, no?

And yes, it was an extreme example, it wasn't meant to be taken for it's weight in gold.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Snide comments are uncalled for.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

That's an interesting metric, but I think I"m looking for a different one: of those teams that played with you, how many are still operating compared to the overall average? I suspect the thrill of playing with 254 probably boosted the enthusiasm for those teams for some time and increased the number of team members in the future.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Here's the argument (sorry for restating it for those who have followed what I've been saying--one poster said "Specifically Mr. McCann, I believe that I and the majority in this thread have read your posts and understand what you are arguing for." Apparently some still don't follow and are asking for further clarification.):

I'll start with my premise, which I think many of you may have missed (and I was remiss in addressing earlier). I haven't yet seen a counter argument to what I've proposed other than saying "I want to do what I want to do." That's not a rationale position that states how what's happening now promotes the objectives of FIRST. I don't accept status quo bias--that what we've stumbled into so far is the best outcome. Make your case, don't just say that we should just stick with the status quo. To be honest, the attrition rate of FRC teams, which I've seen discussed in other threads, indicates that there are problems that we need to address. Lets' start fixing them. Come up with some good ideas. I've put out mine. Instead of shooting them down, propose something else.

So here's my principals:

1) A preferred way to encourage participation in the FIRST program, and thus in STEM education, is to allow all teams the broadest level of participation in elimination alliances.

2) As a corollary, less experienced and less competitive teams learn a tremendous amount from being able to ally with more experienced, competitive teams through a series of elimination matches.

3) Teams drafting their own second bot creates an insular environment which degrades the atmosphere of coopertition. A team doing so appears to be implying, even if that's not the intent, that it is better than any other team, that it is not interested in learning from other teams that might in in other alliances, and isn't interested in sharing its expertise and resources with other teams.

4) With these objectives in mind, I suggest these changes to be used by event organizers (I can understand the concern about event autonomy, but FIRST can issue guidelines):

a) Offseason event should decide the intent of their event as to the level of competitiveness. IRI and Chezy Champs stand as the most competitive. Others like the Rookie Rumble will decide that maximum participation among all teams is the objective.

b) in the less competitive events, to maximize the interaction among teams and the ability for the greatest possible number of teams to play in the eliminations, alliance captains would not be allowed to choose their own second robot unless there are no other 'bots running.

c) Another great option is to require alliance captains to teams other than other alliance captains. I specified rule changes above that would dissuade teams from losing late matches to avoid become an alliance captain.

5) If teams tried to do these on their own they would be unilaterally "disarming" because other teams would choose more competitive drafting strategies, and a deep literature in political science and economics shows that few will choose this approach. If you really, really don't believe this, I can start sending you citations from the literature. I know of no studies that say otherwise.)

6) Hal Varian (1986) [now Google CIO] showed that we will underprovide a preferred level of charitable contributions or cooperative giving if we avoid compelling everyone to participate and leave the provision to individual choice. This means that if we want to encourage meeting the first two objectives, the event organizer needs to compel all teams to follow these rules so that everyone gains greater benefits and reaches a higher level of satisfaction with the outcome.

Yes, this does limit individual freedom of choice. But the sequential draft already restricts a team's ability to choose whichever team they want, and the selection refusal rule adds even more of a restriction. We often limit freedom of choice in many situations to improve overall societal benefits. The speed limit is just one example.

An important difference in offseason--for almost all teams, moving on the World Championships is at stake in the Regionals and Districts. That is never the case in the offseason, so it has a much different competitive flavor. Think of the NFL preseason games vs regular season and the level of competitiveness.

As to contacting event organizers, I am encouraging other teams who see the benefits of this approach to contact their chosen events and persuade those events to use these rules. It is not my place to be the event "police" and monitor what each event is doing. I used the Fall Classic as an EXAMPLE of a situation and I don't feel its my responsibility to follow up with them. (I follow up with events that we compete in where I think that changes would be beneficial.) So please do not ask me to contact anyone about this comment.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I'm going to respond in two ways: First, the two holes I see in your argument. Next, my perception of what the ACTUAL problem is.

First, your two holes are in your #1 and #3 statements. The first is that the preferred way to encourage participation in FIRST is to maximize the number of teams in elims, and the other is that teams drafting their own second robot is a bad thing (paraphrase). The second one is easier, so I'll start there: I've seen VERY few events where one team, let alone multiple, has the ability to pick their own 2nd robot, and actually does so. I believe this to be an infrequent occurrence, thus, on any risk matrix, it would need a rating of "catastrophic" to need serious action taken.

Back to the first hole. Maximizing the number of teams in eliminations is a good thing, IF "we're all winners" is a good thing. However, I note that this is a COMPETITION, thus, "we're all winners" is not something you really want to encourage. Furthermore, I would posit that the preferred method of encouraging participation is not necessarily maximizing the number of teams in eliminations, but maximizing the number of inter-team interactions through pit visits, alliances, team socials, and other similar activities. Maximizing the number of teams in eliminations is but one aspect of this, and seems to be the ONLY one you're focused on. Please, look at all of the trees in the forest, not just the oaks.


Now, my perception of the ACTUAL problem, relating to attrition. There are generally 3 or 4 causes of a team not returning. I'm going to go ahead and list them; they are: Funding, Lack of Mentorship, Lack of Administrative Support, and Lack of Interest (students/parents). Of the four, again, you seem to only be tackling one, the last one--I agree that interest is higher if you win more--but I would argue that you need to watch out for all four. What if, for example, your high school decided that robotics was no longer worthwhile? Could your team survive the transition to another administrative base? What if your mentors suddenly burned out or got transferred? (One team I've been involved with did have this problem--they've been doing VRC and FLL since that year.) How about funding? Can you increase your fundrasing quickly enough, if your sponsors pull out or you don't get that big grant (see the Texas thread)? Or what if all your current students graduated, and somehow you didn't have any recruiting?

As a side note: You weren't been around for this, but one of the ALL-TIME most successful years for one FRC team was followed the very next year by that team NOT being in EXISTENCE. Think about it: Einstein Finalist, along with a lot of other awards/event wins. Gone. Split into 2 or 3 other teams, at least one of which since folded too, re-emerging as a rookie for a year or so, might still be around. Think about that for a minute. That isn't a problem of not getting inspiration from being in eliminations! In that case, I believe I remember hearing that it was some form of administration issues leading to the split, and a sponsor doing something-or-other that led to lack of funding for the team that folded. This was a top-tier team. Not a mid-pack or low-end team. Top-tier attrition. That could be you guys. That could be anybody.


So attrition isn't a problem that can be solved just by slapping restrictions on what teams can and can't be picked by alliance captains in order to artificially boost the number of different/lower-ranked teams in the eliminations. Another thing ya missed was the first year of alliances, and the various things tried that year to make it work. What ended up happening was largely the system we've used ever since. FIRST has had multiple iterations of the selection rules to even things out a bit--the most notable being the serpentine, but others include monkeying with how teams are ranked. Whether they've worked well is up for debate year by year.

And this isn't something, at the offseason level at any rate, that FIRST is even going to want to address. Their attitude towards offseason events is something like "put it on our calender, if you want to; if you want to use our fields, here's who to contact; here's a form of field control you can try to use" and other than that they don't touch them. They'll acknowledge they exist, and support pre-stop-build scrimmages within range, but they don't go any further. That guideline isn't going to happen, not from HQ at any rate, unless they actually see this as a solution to a problem.


Here is my solution to the attrition: Start tracking the teams that drop out of FRC. Figure out how many are going to FTC and VRC, and possibly other competitions, because that's where a lot of them end up. The robots and budgets are smaller, the mentors have a little less work, there are a LOT more teams, and they're at least as effective. I can think of at least 4 FRC teams, off the top of my head, that aren't in FRC anymore... but are in VRC or FTC. Those aren't attrition. They're multiplication.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I disagree in whole with the statement of "I want to do what I want to do". My team is young, has experienced some success, and this was the first year that we competed in an off-season event at MRI. I did not invest my time nor my team's very precious resources to compete at this event to win. My goal was to offer up to my up and coming members that same experience that we would expect to find at a highly competitive regional. Yes, we did very well. However, that was aside from how I approached the event as a coach. I established the idea with my team to treat this as a regional event. Do not expect to make the elims. We are here to hone our skills.

If the other teams do not approach this off-season event in the same manner (whether it be an 'A' squad or 'B' Squad) lessens the experience for my own team. My scouts would not get an experience that is like a regional; my PIT would not get an experience that is like a regional; my Marketing team would not get an experience that is like a regional. Etc.

Why is it that learning only happens in the elims? Why is this your only hang-up?

How is that? If you are a coach (I am assuming that you are because you have stated your accolades in athletics and such) - how can you not see the value in placing your team in a situation that allows for them to compete with the best against the best? Even as my alliance has to compete against another that has two bots of the same team, I want this. That means that the other alliance may have a competitive advantage and should be able to compete at a different level. But is that necessarily true? If alliance A is made of 3 robots from 3 top programs and alliance B is made of two robots from teh same team and another from a different team - what makes Alliance B stand out? They (Alliance B) have to compete against an alliance that is made up of 3 teams with their own best drive team, pit, etc. What about Alliance B sharing it's collective knowledge between the alliance - shouldn't the other team learn just as much from the other two robots team? I trust that through the integrity of FRC that alliance B's robotics teams would further the other team even so much more.

On the same note - I have witnessed first hand 2 different times where my alliance has benefited from our opposing alliance helping out one of our partners. So that point is mute.

On a side note, I would discourage my own team from choosing our 'B' robot - but we are 3-5 years from that being a possibility.

This is not just a ludicrous statement, it is insulting. Just because these two events draw in the best of the best they are exempt from your policies? Then how do other events ever grow to challenge IRI or Chezy? So events in other regions or states should just water down the competition to best fit the lowest common denominator?

Why then play qualifications? Why not just play 10 rounds of 'practice' and then random draw the elims - and leave out all the 'B' teams because they are not worthy of competing in the elims because their school is just too good.

And within these statements I realize the difference between you and I. I understand the beauty of the FRC competition season and the need for off-season events. You, as a self-proclaimed policy-maker, want to regulate the off-season events - events that are put on by people that are fans/supporters/coaches/alum/etc of FRC that just want to put their own spin on FIRST Robotics.

I fear the day that the current generation of FRC leadership retires and a new group of policy-wonks/educational experts/politicians take over and recreate Dean Kamen's view of competitive STEM through cooperation. What you are suggesting goes against everything that I believe FRC is about. If you are solely concerned with promoting STEM through equal outcome - then please go ahead and do so. But do not do so at the behest of the rest of us.

So instead of encouraging the teams that do not make it to the finals at an off-season event to create their own venue - you would rather have them push their own agenda on the kind folks that put on these off-season events. Is that how you create change? In other words, don't pave your on path as Dean Kamen did, pressure everyone else to change to your own ideals?

McCann - do you realize that you are truly the minority on this site? This site that is dominated by the hardcore FRC community? Why are you pushing your agenda for off-season events so hard? I just don't get it. Allow the FIRST to conduct the game and organization that has created so many opportunities for so many students to continue in their manner. And in that same breath, allow the off-season organizers to create venues and events that adhere to their own ideals. Why is this such a problem for you?

In the end - it is you that created the problem, stated the problem, offered a solution that was undesirable to the masses - and yet you complain that the rest of us aren't GP.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Others have said a lot of what I would have, though not necessarily with the same tone. However, I want to repeat and/or emphasize a few things.

It's your preferred way, obviously. But in causing certain teams to progress past where they otherwise would have, I think you've diluted the experience. I for one do not believe in the platitude of "everyone's a winner".

"I'm not going to tell you all that you all are winners. At this point you are smart enough to know whether you are or you aren't." -- Woodie Flowers

I see you focusing on elimination matches. I don't think that's where most of the learning experience takes place. They are much too stressful a situation for that. It's certainly exciting to participate in them, and I can believe that a team might want to do it again after getting a taste of it, but I don't see any evidence that a less competitive team is going to learn a lot by being allied with a more competitive one in the eliminations.

This strikes me as a very unlikely state of affairs. I have to wonder whether you've actually been to a competition with the kind of "friendly" alliance selections that you disagree with. And I again note that you seem to be focused on the elimination rounds and ignoring the rest of the event.

NO.

FIRST has no business telling FRC teams and event organizers what they can and cannot do outside the official FRC competition structure. You can certainly suggest the changes you desire, but you should be suggesting them to the people who can implement them instead of to the general Chief Delphi forums audience.

That's enough. I disagree with "maximum participation" as a universal goal, and I strongly disagree with your presumption that you can tell a less competitive event how to run their alliance selections. I find it absurd that you would consider making "level of competitiveness" an explicit measure of event planning.

I could respond individually to the rest of your points, but it would not add anything to the discussion.

--
Alan Anderson
TechnoKats Robotics Team
FIRST Team #45

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

First you say FIRST should be issuing guidelines, then you say teams should persuade events to do this.

Off-seasons are unofficial. That's the whole point.

FIRST might provide a field but if I felt like running the 2014 game with 17 balls in play at once and full-field ramming allowed then that's our prerogative at our offseason.

It's up to the teams who buy in to that event to decide if that's what they want to spend their offseason budget on.

Now if I made that rule and teams decided not to come because of it, that's my feedback right there. Maybe the next year I won't make such sweeping and drastic changes.

Same goes for what you're proposing. Some offseasons prioritize competitiveness at whatever cost, some prioritize getting everyone to play in elims, and some balance in the middle somewhere.

What you aren't quite getting is that you can't enforce a standard across offseasons. There's just not a realistic way to do that, nor should there be.

You have certainly stated your opinion, over and over - but the fact is that unless event organizers are getting specific feedback (or teams aren't giving them their money), they're going to make their rules as they choose.

And no, I'm not talking about 'feedback' in a big Chief thread- I'm talking about direct emails or conversations with the people running a specific event.

If you'd like an offseason where teams aren't allowed to pick their second robots, then I suggest you start forming a planning committee and make that your main rule.

If you see an offseason near you that you think has the 'wrong' rules, then just don't go.

--

Side thought: Are we not recognizing that a 'B' team is still kids who might not have had drive/pit/scouting experience unless they were at that event? How is excluding them okay?

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

+1

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

^+1000

My point in one statement. I would be safe to assume that teams that bring more than one robot to an offseason event aren't doing it to "annihilate the competition". Pretty shallow don't you think?

If our team had the time/resources to build a practice/side bot, we would do the same! Just for the sole purpose of developing new drivers and giving other kids the chance to be at the controls that didn't have the opportunity at the regular season events.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I have, heck I have typed a few of them

Gonna be honest here, FRC and especially Chief Delphi are heavily against the status quo, with how fast our program has grown even since my first season (more then twice the number of active FRC teams) some have said that we are the vocal minority on here but I think we are more a slightly skewed sample size ( there is a higher representation of top tier teams on here then rookies just starting out).

To bring back my point, it speaks volumes to me about how short of a time you have been around that you think people on delphi are sheep who just baaah and don't challenge the status quo. If you look at major rule changes in a season, or changes to FRC as a whole you can find either the people behind them, or a thread debating it, sometimes years before it happens, on
delphi. If your idea appealed to even 10% of our community they would vehemently support you and not allow you to be arguing against us pretty much alone. I take that to mean this is less about us fearing change and more about your overall ideas not being very appealing overall

An interesting idea here, I feel like this is one of the points where I agree with you but for a different reason then you provided. I agree that inclusion in elimination alliances is a good think but not to encourage participation in FIRST but to encourage continued participation and dissuade disillusionment. I am not going to get someone to sign up and pay $5000 by guaranteeing them a place in eliminations, however I may get someone to pay $5000 for a second time because they felt they got their moneys worth the first time.

This may seem confusing but to put it simpler you can easily convince people to pay $19.99 for a product the first time but if that product stops working before you feel it should it is harder to convince you to pay $19.99 for the next version of the product.

So I agree with you but for different reasons then what I feel you intended, as you have said you are a policy maker but I am a capitalist so I look at what consumers want.

How does one measure how much one has learned? The only way is through testing or observation. I feel if we look at teams who currently make eliminations who are less competitive or less experienced they already are more competitive then the field who does not make eliminations, so we have circular logic of a good team getting better because they already were good regardless of if they learned from an alliance partner. You honestly may be right as we have seen teams come in their rookie year get picked up by a world caliber team and become a force to be reckoned with (2056), but the point is they already were good at FRC before 1114 took interest in them, I will come back to this point on a later one of your points.

This may be one of the single most insulting things I have read on here masquerading as something in the name of gracious professionalism. Your statement is basically saying that teams are out to hurt FRC by picking the best bot available to them. "How dare they do whatever they can to reward their sponsors, mentors, and other team members!" I went back and got a hold of teams who missed eliminations at Panther Prowl "because of backup bots" and everyone who has responded to me thus far has had the same general attitude, missing eliminations inspired them to try to make a more competitive bot next year so it won't happen again. I find that better for our program and their teams.

No they can't, if they try and teams don't like it they will either not host an offseason, or just build a field themselves as the field it the only thing that FIRST can deny them.

I did not find IRI and Chezy the most competitive offseasons, I did find them having the highest level of competition but not the most competitive. This is a difference in opinion here, I have seen peewee football games much more competitive then NFL games, how competitive an event is is about how close together the skill of the participants are to each other, not how skilled the group is overall. Think about it as a more competitive event as a small range of skills (the skill of the most skillful being closer to the skill of the least skillful), while IRI has a higher ceiling of skill.

Two big problems with this I brought up the issue of triplets registered to one team in an earlier post but this also punishes teams for seeding lower. If my team is rank 7 in theory I have a much lower chance of picking up my more competitive practice bot then I do at rank 1. Also this doesn't guarantee more unique teams in eliminations it one guarantees that teams second bots are less likely to be with them, for example nothing stops my team from picking 180's back up bot (which we did twice) and they could in turn pick up ours. So no new teams in eliminations.

And I brought up how fundamentally wrong that rule is. I am starting to think you don't like me as you seem to ignore whenever I try to have a civilized discussion with you :(

Alright I think what you are trying to say here is if every team tried to employ your suggestions without the event making them rules someone would go rogue and look out only for themselves. I could see that happening and agree if something major is only suggested and teams can choose to ignore it someone may try.

How does punishing my rookie drive team for being on a second robot allow everyone to gain greater benefits and be better satisfied with the outcome? I feel that they are implied to be part of everyone but I could be wrong.

No sequential draft does not restrict a teams ability to choose whichever team they want, your system directly limits 1 more team minimum for everyone. No believe it or not speed limits do not improve societal benefits, I could quote literature and studies that show on places with no speed limits their are less accidents as people do not know how fast a driver may be traveling so are more likely to pay attention and not assume someone is going to be going with the flow of traffic.

One could argue then that if your ideas are so good they should be applied to the regular season as the regular season should inspire more, but then as I have stated that would mean punishing teams like MORT and Goodrich martians, and bringing questions on teams who build twins yearly (801 and 1592).

I am going to be honest if any event we were looking into or did attend implemented your rules I would actively argue for us not to reward that event with our presence or funds.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Is this something your team considers during alliance selections both at regionals AND off-season events or do you strictly make your picks based off of competitive performance? I have a decent hunch as to what the answer is but it was one that I asked earlier and another member addressed yet you haven't responded. I hope that doesn't sound like I'm calling 1678 out as I truly have the highest respect for Citrus Circuits, but if those are the points you are using are these ideals your team actively pursues? Do you weight your picks to include teams who frequently aren't in elimination rounds?

I would not say that those us who hold different views are just sticking to the status quo because it is the status quo. I think change can be good but there are times where the status quo is good: let different events & teams choose how they want to run & participate in events.

I will tell you from first hand experience that being left out of the elimination tournament is one of the biggest wake up calls/motivators for a team striving to do better. I know as it happened to us in 2012 at our second event where our robot was performing much better in comparison to our first event where we finished in the top 8. Let's not make it seem like sitting out of eliminations is a bad thing and there isn't something to be learned from it. If this is a continual pattern for your team then there is really something wrong that you need to re-evaluate how you build and compete on the field.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I did not mean to imply that your quote was irrelevant. My quote was referring to this thread in general. Since the same few points have been repeated over and over again and no progress seems to be being made. After every few posts I read, it seems "like deja vu, all over again."

I should have been more specific, since it looked as though I was calling you out individually. However, I only referenced you because you used a Yogi Berra quote.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

During the season.

During the off-season

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Ah yes, like a team who's made it to Einstein twice for your third at CC.

This is all from me on this topic.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

I'm sorry that you can't see the difference between Regionals and off season and the difference in the stakes involved. No one has ever had to qualify for Worlds from an off season event. I've been very clear on that point throughout.

I won't respond to the other points. I think the validity of my statements stand on their own. There are several key errors in the responses to my post (and the petty comments about semantics are misdirected as well), but individuals can message me directly if they want to follow up on this. I've watched how other sports have responded to similar challenges over the last several decades and I have observations about what might work best here.

Re: A comment about alliance selection in off season events
 

Point taken.