what to do if the other alliance reneges on coop
 

I looked at http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...t=coopertition, but didn't see any discussion of this, and I got asked this question by another team's drive coach/mentor at Gull Lake....

What is an appropriate post-match response when the other alliance reneges on their half of an agreement to do coopertition? This wasn't a "they tried and failed", but a plain old "no visible effort" (confirmed by scouts in the stands)?

My advice was to go over, smile, and ask politely "urm, what happened?", listen, smile, and walk away (at least you called them on it!), but I'm searching for a better way to handle it.

I understand that ignoring it is an alternative, but *darn*, I hate it when people don't even *try* to make their commitments....

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

What else can you do, really? Take them off your pick list and move on.

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

Call your local Don and have them bust a few kneecaps.

OT: You really can't do much. All we do is just tell our scouts (who then put a black mark by their name) and make sure that we use the information to benefit us in the future.

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

Definitely go to the source to get an understanding of what went on: only the coach and/or drivers really know what happened. Here's some insight from our experience in Pittsburgh.

Coop this year is so sticky. It shouldn't even be discussed until after autonomous for both sides has been figured out for all 6 robots. There are multiple possibilities for where yellow totes end up after autonomous. Then the alliances need to figure out which teams work best at HP loading or field loading the totes as they're planned to be for coop. At that point, the inter-alliance Coop discussion should happen.

If anything goes out of order with this discussion, it seems like a coin toss has better odds of getting Coop. Even with a solid plan though, RNG has a lot do do with it. If anything like HP loading goes wrong, RC's get knocked over next to the yellow tote, the landfill gets messed up, the wrong noodle goes into the wrong place, or the intended coop robot's drive train or mechanism doesn't respond as-intended, then coop may not even be attempted. It could also be that the robot who's trying Coop has never HP loaded before since they're landfill-centric - and when the first chute tote falls over they abandon coop altogether.

Scouts can't tell a team any of this. I don't think it means the team is scratched off a list - especially if it's early in the event. Our scouts evaluate a team for its performance and potential all the way to the end of Quals, unless I tell them I can't work with another coach for specific reasons.

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

We had that happen to us at Indy week 1. In our second to last match we played against a team who in the final seconds had the last yellow totes above the step but didn't lower them. Because of this match our average score lowered.

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

^This. You shouldn't immediately black-mark a team unless you know for a fact that they told you they'd do co-op and then never do during the match, then they laugh it off when you ask why they did it. Although I find it hard to believe there's many teams that would practice that kind of unprofessional-ism. They should at least be able to give you a reason prior to the match why they won't do co-op.

I'd rather pick a team that is beneficial to my alliance in the eliminations where co-op means nothing.

How do you know they actively avoided putting the totes on yours? Did you ask? Did there robot have communication or power issues that caused it to stop?

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

There's not much you can do. We had co-op planned for just about all of our matches at Reading but it was only completed maybe half the time for various reasons. Sometimes our alliance failed to deliver the first set of totes and sometimes it was the other for varying reasons.

Robots break, litter gets in the way, bins move into orientations they can't get to or prevent them from getting there, they might be waiting for you to place yours if there was a communication breakdown, etc.

The best thing you can do is talk to them to find out if something went wrong or to apologize if you were the link in the chain that broke and move along. Try not to assume the worst of your partners or opponents and if you do truly feel they stood you up don't stress over it and hold a grudge. There's not much you can do after the fact and by the time alliance selections come around you should both be on the same page and work together like professionals.

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

I really appreciate when teams talk about what happened with co-op post-match. It does no good to mark a team off your pick list if there is a reasonable explanation for what happened.

I felt bad after a match in Pine Tree where we failed to get the 4th Co-op tote up, I explained to the other alliance that we had an unmitigated disaster on our side of the field with stacks getting knocked over and totes getting dropped that we had no control over. We couldn't get to the yellow tote in time to score it.

We've also dealt with litter getting dumped all over the coop area from our alliance or the other alliance, making co-op an exercise in futility.

In general its a good idea to actually talk to a team about their robot and its performance rather than just going based upon on-field scouting, for a variety of reasons.

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

Team 1629 had the coop responsibility most of the time for our alliances, so we ended up negotiating before the matches on how things would "go". We did a three tote autonomous, so the totes were already close, even if the other alliance didn't want to coop, we still stacked our totes on the platform, to "show" that we could. We are a landfill bot so we had to go over there anyway. And if there was a team that said they could coop with us, and then didn't/couldn't after all, we would set the yellow totes close to the platform if by some chance they would make it at some point. That determination was made about 10-15 seconds after autonomous. We also had some teams outright tell us that they were not going to coop with us due to them being the #1 ranked robot and they had no one else on their alliance that could score like them and they didn't have time to do coop, which made no sense as it is a guaranteed 20-40 points depending upon the stack.

I guess how we handled it, was to do our thing no matter what another team did. Some teams want to help, some don't. We ended up the 9th overall seed of the tournament, then moved up to 6th during the draft selections, picked the 33rd and 16th ranked team, and won the whole thing, eventually beating out the #1 and #2 qualification match ranked teams.

To sum it up, "Do your thing, the rest will take care of itself"

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

Stuff happens. As long as you tried, we're not going to remove someone from a pick list for a botched co-op attempt unless it's a consistent tote-dropping problem.

We let teams know that we'll be able to deliver somewhere between 1-3 yellow totes, depending if the auto works (really averages out at two). If we're only able to deliver one, I won't be too broken up if it doesn't get done.

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

There are a thousand reasons, especially at a lower level competition, why the other alliance might fail to come through on a coopertition agreement.... We simply can't worry about it: Similar to a team mentioned above, we'll do our autonomous stack and immediately scoop up the totes to bring them to the step. We can have the three yellows on the step about 10 seconds into teleop. If the other alliance puts one on top: Great. Most teams will find that to be a very good use of their time (40 pts. in a match is more than 90% of teams could pull of individually anyhow). If not, we really haven't lost much as we'd have to be moving the stack out-of-the-way anyhow.

We are far more frustrated when alliance partners go back on pre-match strategy. Those teams are marked off our pick list.

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

The context of my suggestion was after the poster had already tried talking to the team after the match and asking what had happened. With no satisfactory explanation given, it's too much of a liability to pick a team that has already demonstrated that they at best won't listen and at worst will actively lie about their intentions. Not on my alliance.

If they tried, sure. If they didn't try and they have even a decent explanation, might be a little annoyed, but whatever.

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

Taking them off your pick list isn't always an option at districts if their robot is good/okay/not terrible (there were only 30 teams at PNW Mount Vernon, and 7 of them were really.... not the best options...)

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

I don't see the exact point of blacklisting or pulling the team off your picklist, unless it's just the principle of the matter. Even still, if they are constant in other areas of the game, they are still a valuable asset. Our scouters will run information to us about the other alliance's track record for co-op. If they are inconsistent at it, we may request they do their portion first.

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

If a team says they'll do something, doesn't do it, and then won't tell you why they didn't do it when you ask later, it demonstrates they are poor communicators, poor listeners, and unreliable. Are those qualities you want in an elims partner?

Again, even something like "I forgot" or "it ended up taking us too long to do Task X" or "we knocked a bin over in front of the step" would be fine. The key part of the interaction that drove that post for me was when they didn't offer an explanation.

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

True, though the other half of that is where you are in the draft/what alliance you're looking to build. Someone not finding you after the match to explain is one thing (that might be alright on some pick lists); not answering if you ask appropriately is quite another. If you're a lower seeded captain, you may really need the type of team/coach that's got the former initiative. But if you're up at the top/have two of the best robots already (yourself and Pick #1), you might be able to get by with someone who you have to sort of 'babysit' in terms of communication, provided that they've got the other qualities you want ...particularly this year. That said, I fully support your allusion that communication is almost always paramount for winning banners.

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

Definitely don't cuss at them. I had another mentor do that to me once during Rebound Rumble. Left a bad taste in my mouth concerning that team and mentor ever since.

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

One thing our team does is scout how well other teams stick to the strategy. We just keep a side not of that on our scouting forms, and take input from the drive team on whether they did or did not like working with said team and the reasons why.

When it comes to the other alliance, we prefer to do the top 1 or 2 totes on the coop stack so that we can put up some points before doing coop. With this it allows us to make sure the other alliance follows through with their half.

On a side note, if it seems unlikely that you can make the stack, at least go for the set: https://youtu.be/qXDckIvE2YY

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

Good points. If there was a clear explanation then I wouldn't write them off either.

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

That comment, Holy s**t!

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

Our robot and drive team can reliably and quickly do coop. What we do is have our scouting team record who can do coop and with what success rate. If we are confident a team can and will do it, we do coop first thing in the match and get it over with. If we're not so sure, we have them do it first, and if they succeed, we do our part.

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

Our Pit Scouts, tried doing this at SBPLI and our students got accused of intimidating the other students which was not the case at all...

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

At which point, you may want to simply cross the team off of your picklist. If someone can't deal with a "hey, we were wondering what happened in that last match" in a low-pressure situation, then you have to wonder what will happen in a high-pressure situation, like, oh, I don't know, QF8 or SF5?

Actually, you can also ask if there's anything they need help with--they might have a robot problem that stopped them from doing coop. It happens.

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

While it may seem funky that the #1 team doesn't want to go for the co-op, you have to understand the position they are in. Ill give you an example:

3512 was ranked #2 (@ ventura) all day long during the first day of quals, ended #3, but in any case, we were in great position. We got there by putting up 2 stacks of 5 w/ R.C. and litter every single match. One of they key things for us was to be consistent, and adding co-op to the equation was too risky. The main reason for this was that teams simply could not get it done reliably every match. Now I know this doesn't sound like your team, but from my experience your team is an exception to this.

We played 12 qualification matches at ventura, our alliances planned for co-op for every single one of those 12 matches, and I'm pretty sure we only successfully got co-op twice. After the first 3 matches in a row of co-op falling through, and because of our ranking, I made the decision that my team would not be cooperating during any match, and instead that we should focus on building our stacks.

To conclude, I made the decision for my team not to go for co-op based off my opinion that teams were not consistent enough at following through, so why should i take time, and score less points, for something with only a 16.66% (2/12 * 100) chance of succeeding?

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

I said this in another thread, but I feel it's valuable here, too. My team has no ability to score co-op. We make this clear to all our alliance partners. However, we stack the co-op totes at the beginning of the match and then pass them to an alliance partner to hopefully score them. (assist?) It's pretty fast, out of the feeder. There's no loss, even if co-op isn't completed, because we still can put up 2-3 stacks in the time remaining.

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

This is the approach we take. We end up doing it ourselves about half the time and passing it to an alliance partner about half the time, depending on what our scouting data says, but we always go for coop. We went 6/12, 10/12, and 8.5/12 at our three events. (The half is for a coop set.)

We have a 2-tote auto, so we can immediately set them down on the step, or we can leave them sitting on the field and go back between stacks or after stacking and finish off the stack they started for us.

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

I agree. It's a balancing act. We try to get a balance between "capable of probably getting the coop done" and "can put up more of the points for our alliance" when deciding who to have do our half. It's often quite a feat trying to get the best team we can negotiate out of the other alliance, but I understand because we are doing the same thing.

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

We saw this happening. I fully understand its their strategy, but I fail to understand why #1 team:
1. is not confident of their robot/drive team?
2. embrace the coopertition part of FIRST
3. deny their alliance of getting a higher score (especially if their alliance's robot is not as high scoring as them).

Well on the other hand I was not in their position, so its hard for me to understand. I hold no grudge against them.

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

They are the #1 seed, presumably if they just keep doing what they're doing they will keep #1 seed. If that means skipping co-op, then they skip it.

The rules incentivize different things, and you should never judge a team for acting within their own self interest within these rules in a competition.

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

If they know that their alliance partners aren't very good and won't get them that many points anyway, they may want to suggest that they at least try since they wouldn't be making that much of a score difference anyway. They should of course, in that case warn you that the team may not be able to but they will try and there is a fairly good chance that the should be able to get one tote on the stack if you get 3. If they don't want this, then just go back to your original strategy.

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.)