Re: what to do if the other alliance reneges on coop
 

I agree with this. We were one of those teams that told other alliances that we were not going to attempt Coop, we were not however going to stop anyone on our alliance from attempting it. We felt we could score more points faster and more reliably by continuing doing what we were doing than by attempting coop.

Re: what to do if the other alliance reneges on coop
 

I'm weighing back in on this thread;
I am going to look at this by the numbers; earlier it was said that if a team doesn't do co-op then you may "black list" them. While I do not agree with this method, there is some merit to it. Every event you are more than likely going to play with a team more than once in qualification (At central Illinois we played in the same match as a team 4 times), let's go with the assumption that you will play with/against a team 2.5 per qualification matches in an event. Under this assumption each match counts as 40% towards their "co-op completion percentage" it a team has a 0% average while playing with/against your team then I think it is fair to blacklist them. We cannot factor in other matches that particular team plays because we do not know all the details on what did or didn't happen.
Does everyone think that this is a fair analysis? What could be potential improvements to this concept?

-Skye

Re: what to do if the other alliance reneges on coop
 

These numbers may be true at district events, but they are definitely not true at regional events. There were teams we didn't see a single time on the field during the qualification rounds this past weekend.

Re: what to do if the other alliance reneges on coop
 

Then I guess you would have fewer teams to add you the "black-list". However this is a very good point, at most of the larger regionals/worlds you may see a team once at max. As I stated before, it is not fair to rely on a "one chance" method, I guess instead of a "black list" you could have a "watch closely over the next 3 matches list".

Re: what to do if the other alliance reneges on coop
 

This thread has spun in two different directions. The first direction was to address the question of the OP: What to do if the other alliance breaks their agreement. In the context of FRC coop, I would never assume that just because the other alliance was unsuccessful, that they intentionally broke their promise to try. It would be completely appropriate to approach the other alliance after the match to find out what went wrong. The answers you would get would probably be pretty educational.

The second direction is questioning why a team might not agree to coop in the first place. It has been suggested that declining to participate is either not a good idea, poor sportsmanship, against the spirit of FIRST or otherwise worthy of placing a team on a blacklist. I've actually been pondering this question before coming across this thread, so I'll share some thoughts. The first thing our team does on kickoff weekend is to analyze the game, and prioritize scoring actions based on point power, time necessary to perform the action and likelihood of success. This year that analysis led us to optimize our robot for feeder station stacking. We still have the ability to place totes on the step, but we feel that the time required to do so is better spent doing what we do best. Therefore, when asked about coop stacking, we defer to our alliance partners to accept if they so chose. It would be wrong to agree to attempt coop if we had no intention to do so. It is also wrong to insist that a team accept a lower score, so that you can benefit from coop points.

Now, let's turn this question of "black listing" around. Let's hypothesize that the highest scoring robots can score points faster by stacking totes or capping them than they can by doing coop. Let's assume that these are the robots which end up as the alliance captains. Let's also assume that the robots which benefit the most from coop are the ones least likely to end up as alliance captains. In that case, the argument could be made that a team's desire to participate in coop is inversely proportional to their value to a potential alliance captain.

This might especially be true in a year when the skills for coopertition in the qualification matches differ from those which are valuable during the eliminations (or playoffs). In 2013, with bridge balancing, robots which participated in coopertition were developing skills which were of immense value to their alliance in the eliminations. This year, the specific skill set necessary for coopertition (placing a tote or totes onto another tote or totes) is different than the skills which are valuable during the playoffs (rapidly building stacks at the feeder station, or the landfill, or capping stacks with cans). FRC matches are an intense learning experience. You can expect your drive team to be very much more skilled in their final qualification match than in their first one. In this way, qualification matches are much like build season. Time is your most precious resource. During build season, you spend this time building your robot and practicing with it. During qualification matches you have limited time to develop the skills which might be valuable to your potential alliance captain.

This year there are readily available statistics that can be used by teams at their Friday night strategy meetings. Two of these are the Qualification Average (average points scored per match) and also Coopertition points. When building a pick list, teams are ranked according to desirability. Looking at an example from a random regional, we have a team with a QA of 70.3 and Coop score of 200. Just below them is a team with a QA of 69 and a Coop score of 80. Which is a more desirable pick? One relied far more heavily (more than twice as much) than the other on coopertition points. In other words, one team spent their valuable learning time developing a skill set which is valuable in the playoffs, and the other spent their time developing a skill set which boosted their rank, but isn't of much use to an alliance captain.

Think this is just an intellectual exercise? It's not. It's a parable for how you, as students, chose to spend your free time. You may not know it yet, but your free time is your most valuable resource. Ask an adult whose opinion you value and see if they don't agree. You can chose to spend that time in ways that benefit you later in life, or you can waste it. If I'm interviewing a recent graduate for a mechanical engineering position I might ask a couple different questions. One might be, "What's your favorite video or computer game?" or "Which video gaming console do you prefer and why?" The other question might be "Tell me about the latest thing you built with your hands." The way you answer these questions is going to tell me a lot about how you have chosen to spend your free time and whether you are using it to develop skills which are valuable or worthless to me. (And before the outraged gamers unleash their wrath, someone hiring a video game developer might ask the same two questions and hope for very different answers.)