Highest ranked team not picked?
 

Anyone have data for each subdivision on the highest ranked team (after quals) that was not picked for an alliance?

We were part of that cohort, I think, and my kids will want to take a look at why were were passed over as they plan for next year.

Thanks for any help you have to offer, and congratulations to all the teams there for making it to the event.

Re: Highest ranked team not picked?
 

Rank =/ robot abilities

Good teams scout and rank doesn't factor in picking teams.

Re: Highest ranked team not picked?
 

Rankings are not a good indicator for skill. Sometimes, good teams have a lower ranking because they had a tough schedule. Other times, the reverse happens and a team gets a higher ranking than they deserve. When this happens a lot of times they will have a ranking that would lead to being picked if everyone is just picked based off of ranks. However, teams scout and that team is normally not picked. Another thing that can happen is a robot being good at a select task but non of the alliances need that skill set when it comes around for their second or third pick.

Re: Highest ranked team not picked?
 

Some of what I said here may apply.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...5&postcount=36

Rank may not tell the entire story. Perhaps during quals you had strong partners or were matched against teams that had mechanical issues. There is way more to picking alliance partners than rank.

Re: Highest ranked team not picked?
 

Archimedes:
3932 at rank 12

Carson:
1137 at rank 14

Carver:
1262 at rank 12

Curie:
5279 at rank 19

Galileo:
4499 at rank 15

Hopper:
686 at rank 13

Newton:
2035 at rank 15

Tesla:
2522 at rank 13

Re: Highest ranked team not picked?
 

On the inverse, what was the lowest ranked team picked first?

Re: Highest ranked team not picked?
 

1986 on Archimedes was Rank 16.

Re: Highest ranked team not picked?
 

Could be 548. We were ranked 48th in Tesla (10th in OPR) and were the first pick of the fifth alliance.

Re: Highest ranked team not picked?
 

Agreed. Especially in this game, there is so much more to a robots ability than seed. We, team 5940, seeded 69th, but were still picked as back up for the 4th alliance.

Re: Highest ranked team not picked?
 

Oh, I thought this was about first picks overall. For first pick by any alliance, 3098 was the first pick of the 8th alliance on Archimedes and was seeded 53rd. Close second was 4920 on Hopper, also first pick of the 8th alliance, seeded 52nd.

Re: Highest ranked team not picked?
 

Likely. I just ran Archimedes and Carson. 3098 was 53rd and was 1st pick of 8th alliance in Archimedes. 868 was 42nd and 1st pick of 6th alliance in Carson. Our team 3824, was ranked 47 and was 1st pick of 8th alliance.

In a nutshell, was ranking a poor metric of performance this year, more so than other years? I don't recall so many low raked teams being picked so early compared to prior years. What was it about this year's game that skewed ranking from individual performance?

Re: Highest ranked team not picked?
 

We were ranked 32 on Newton and were the first pick of 217.

Re: Highest ranked team not picked?
 

Ed, thanks for posting this. This is some of the best advice I've seen on CD, especially in terms of marketing your team. What is your opinion on the rate of low ranked teams being picked so high this year? I've seen this before, but don't recall it at such extremes in each division. Am I wrong or was there something about this year's game that amplified this effect.

Re: Highest ranked team not picked?
 

Results indicate that was a pretty good pick. :) 217 is good at scouting.

16 seeded 42nd (OPR Rank 13), and 125 seeded 33rd (OPR Rank 17) -- both were picked before you were. Teams that do a good job of scouting will generally make pick lists based on their own data, ignoring seed. OPR is more useful than seed, but not a substitute for good scouting.

Good scouting is much harder to do than most teams appreciate. My own team has worked very hard at scouting this year, and we think it is still one of our top opportunities to improve. BTW, several Newton teams were higher on our pick list than they were in the OPR rankings. Your team was one of them.

Back to the original poster's topic: top seeded unpicked team is not important at the Championship, because alliance captains have a 3rd pick instead of a backup robot. I think 4 team alliances make a better tournament, especially at events with 40 or more teams.