yea, we didnt get picked either.. we're still trying to figure out why... =/..

we were 13th in archimedes and undefeated throughout all of our national matches.

i dont think any of the top 8 teams knew who we were, partially due to FIRST's "random" matches, we never really got to play with almost any of them :mad:


o well, next year, i guess we will have to sell our bot like noones business, just like all those singing teams and those annoying beggers.

This year was unique in the terms that there were a lot of good teams, and it was very difficult to decide who to choose. Since Stacking was not effective this year (especially in the finals), therefore there were no unique features that one teams was singling out. Really all you needed was a fast, strong, drive train, good auto program, can go under the bar, and something to knock the boxes around. Those teams like 25, 16, 494, 79, 308, 188, 103, 121, 126 and many more got picked first. After they were picked you had to choose other teams that had many similar characteristics. Ultimately it made of come down to who they like the best, or who they can get along with.

Even the #1 seed in Curie (343) said before they picked 25, that is was difficult choice, because there were so many good teams.

pfft.. we found out all too well this year about seeding meaning nothing. I have drove in 8 competitions, and the first 6 we were always a seeded team. It was great we just picked teams to go with us, and we were a powerhouse, so it didn't matter. This year, at MidAtlantics, we put our drive train together on Thursday, and worked the kinks out of our arm, and finally began running, we had some bad luck with the stupid 40 amp breakers, but finally overcame. We were picked by the #4 seed while we were the #32 seed out of like 43 teams. However, at the Championship Event, we were seeded in the top ten on Friday and Saturday, until our last match. Our last match we had a poor alliance, and for the first time all season our transmission went, we quickly replaced it, and went for alliance selections, to find that we were bumped down to 14 due to the last match. We were not picked, and many people came and talked to us afterwards saying they couldn't believe no one picked us. We were completely unique with the 108" Autonomous Stack Slapper.

I did not mean any disrespect to the team...

This post sounded as if you are demanding an explanation as to why you were not picked by naming the topic, "For all of the teams who didn't pick us......" You could have very easily named the topic something like "Towing 3 tons with our robot", but instead you chose the above. Perhaps if you had named the post anything else, I probabaly would have posted a compliment, but since you "demanded" an explanation, I gave you one.

sorry to get into it... but yeah, I sorta 'wonder' why we weren't picked and other teams who are in a similar situation. I would just like to know from a few Galileo teams why they overlooked us. It could help is in post-season to improve qualities.

The reason I think lots of good teams dont get picked for finals is not getting your name out there enough. Not just at competitions, but here on CD as well. Last year at nationals we were seeded 5-12 the entire time in Einstein. Our last match we lost to 16 and they got huge points (We would have been seeded first or second if we won), so we dropped back to T-11. We thought we were a sure pick... we had been told we were by another team, but thats a different story... well it turned out that we were not picked, and it wasnt a huge deal because we came into SVR that year with a non working robot. The reason we werent picked is because noone knew us. We werent distributing flyers, we werent walking around and approaching teams. Basically, we sat in our pits waiting for someone to either approach us, or just pick us.

Moral: be proactive, dont wait for people to come to you, go to them, constantly sell your robot to anyone who stops at your pits, or teams that you think your robot would compliment well.

Cory

I should of included with my previous post... I have spent many late nights over the past two years developing one of the most extensive databases on other teams. If you ever have a conversation with me, you will be frightened by how much I know about other teams ... [no comments from the peanut gallery - *evulish*].

...anyways... we have this extensive database... we are well known through many years with teams... EVERYONE knows of Chuck Pi in 1999.. "Up Chuck!", and after lasts years enormous success, people know who Chuck is. We have a great system for selling ourselves too, and getting that information out. That's why it is so hard to understand why we were overlooked.

*Galileo top 8.... please give me some input!*

Part of this is selling yourself properly. It's pertinent not only to be honest with teams as to what your robot can do, but to tell them why these features would complement their robots features. Whether you can do something they can't, or you can work together nicely at a good task. Most likely a lot of teams had 93 on their potential picking list, just like we had a lot of teams on ours last year. The one's that got picked where the teams that convinced them their robot would work best with them.

One thing I noticed about 93's current year's robot is that the transmission was the best thing they had going for them. I didn't really notice any wings (correct me if I'm wrong) on the robot or any other special features. I don't mean any disrespect, but if I were a picking team, these lack of features would probabaly bump them to a 2nd round pick. I'm not being mean, I'm being realistic. Couple that with a lack of selling yourself (you could have sold yourself as a powerful robot that can be an asset in descoring strategies for use in the 2nd match after you win the 1st). If you could convince them that you can out-push robots to take down their stacks, I'm sure people would have picked you.

FIRST isn't just about engineering, it also teaches you salesmanship and communication skills. Just like in designing your robot, you have to present your ideas and also convince people why they are the best. If you can't do this effectively, it's much harder to succeed in life. Think about applying for a job. You are trying to sell yourself to a business and convince them that you are the best person for a job. Don't tell me that salesmanship skills aren't an aspect in real life.

Performing well helps you to get picked, but even if you do bad, you still have a chance. You just have to work harder at selling yourself to make up for the poor performance.

And, no, walking up to a team and begging them to "pick us" does not work. A few teams came up to me at MMR last year in the pits and tried this. I just said "I'll see what I can do" and they walked away. I promptly threw their flyers in the trash.

OK. We seeded 3rd. You do deserve an explaination.

We had a long list of teams to pick, and there were many good teams in Galileo. The teams who were toward the top of our list were teams whose robots were good compliments to ours.

We had a good auto-mode, and so did our first pick (217)... so what we really needed as a second pick was a "scat-bot", which was quick and could get around the field effortlessly. We picked 359 for these qualities.

Team 84 has a great robot. They have a good flailing arm that is coupled with a unique ability to "limbo". Their drivetrain is strong and powerful. The only thing that 84 did not have that we wanted in a parter was the "scat" ability to quickly move around the field to push totes and de-score our opponents, if needed.

It was disappointing to see a fine team like 84 not get picked.

Andy B.

To Jnadke
 

Jnadke,

You should treat people nicer. Your negative demeanor seems to cast a dark shadow over many posts here.

You seem to knock all other robots. Where is yours. I'd love to play to play it with.

You guys were on our list, but we amazingly got our top two picks.. 236 and 175 had both won a regional together and competed against eachother in the finals for another regional, so they were our # 1 and 2 picks.. I'm sure you guys will be picked high in many other offseason competitions-

Yeah, even if you are 10th seed or something it doesnt ever mean you are a sure pick, especially at nats. I dont even know if we would have been picked if we had dropped out of the top 8, and we were #1 seed. At midwest, we were picked in the second round, but that was only out of 50 some teams.

As far as why we didnt pick any of you, it was mainly because we had worked out a strategy and we knew exactly what would work with us well. Who we pick is determined by a ton of different factors. However, we depended the least on how a team sold themselves, and we pretty much judged purely on performance. We had a really sweet alliance in the finals, with 68 and 9. Did any of you guys see our second round in the quarterfinals? 68 gets up the ramp in about 3-5 seconds and meets the other teams on top, preventing bins from getting knocked into their zone but not really knocking any bins into ours. Then, team 9, who has a slower autonomous mode, comes up right behind and pushes team 68 squarely in the back, which ends up pushing all of the bins into our side. This kind of strategy and fluid teamwork is what we needed for finals, and most other robots couldnt have fulfilled this type of thing.

Also, there were teams who were not on our pick list because we did not enjoy working with them. It is a major plus to be a good team to work with, because the team I didnt really enjoy working with pretty much wanted to do everything on their own, and even though we may have been better suited for a job, they would tell us to move and they would do it themselves. So, this is also a major factor.

Sorry, 84, but I honestly cant remember much about your robot even though we were pit neighbors, so I cant really tell you anything specific about why we didnt consider you very closely. Did you have an arm that tryed to knock over the boxes kind of like beatty at the beginning? Nearing the end, we didnt end up liking the idea of arm bots in general, because it is our opinion that they are easily defeatable and are not as versatile as other robots. Our picks, 68 and 9, were fast, had good traction, and had what we needed during the 2nd round: ultimate sweeping power.

Selling yourself did not count at all for us, because unfortunately we couldnt trust everything people said about their robots. For example, I dont think I ever heard a team say that they had anything less that superb traction, but obviously not everyone did. So, If you want to sell yourself, you have to do it on the field. However, we have no qualms about picking a lower team because we understand that not everyone has the same luck in their pairings. Its not the end score that we cared about, it was just how you did during the round. 236 was seeded kind of low, but they were second on our list because we saw them as an insanely good robot that had some bad breaks.

We Didnt get picked either
 

We were semi-finalists in Cleveland, Winners of Great Lakes and seeded 15th in Archimedes division.

Part of the reason we didn't get picked is we did not sell ourselves well enough. we did distribute fliers and tried to talk to all teams seeded in the top 20 or so, but I guess we did not talk enough

Another problem was that our matches were not with any big name top seeded teams. meaning they weren't necessarily watching us on the field

Third problem was, since by winning GLR we only had three weeks to make travel plans, we were not able to ship our second module, wings that could fir under the bar.

We also just had bad luck in a couple of our matches of our matches. One of them our robot decided to turn itself off after autonomous mode, Another was just two evenly matched alliances were the score came out low for both sides. That was also the match where we tipped over for the first time all year, but we were pushed to over 45 degrees above the horizontal before we fell over.

Even though it was depressing we still had a fun trip and successful season.

Re: To Jnadke
 

I wasn't knocking their robot, I was knocking his condescending attitude toward the teams that didn't pick him. His post, conveniently titled "For all of the teams who didn't pick us......", seems to imply that they think of themselves as better than all the other selecting teams.

This attitude should not be tolerated. In FIRST, nobody is smarter or better than anyone else. Everyone has their own capacity to be great, it is up to them to utilize that capacity. We are all equals.

I also see people looking at posts on these boards and seeing "what they want to hear" instead of what was actually said. I never once said they had a bad driver, they had a bad strategist, or their robot wasn't built for the game. I generalized the statement to all teams by saying the poor performance could be due to those things. Could is the key word.

Comon now, be nice
 

Wow. I don't know if anyone else has stopped and read this thread, but it sounds like that some people are becomming nasty. We didn't get chosen at Great Lakes or Nationals, but I feel that that doesn't matter to me. It's the experience that FIRST gives us. After meeting Woodie and Dean, I swear, I was happiest at that moment in all the past moments in FIRST. After four years, I finally got to talk to them! Plus, imagine all the people you have meet/will meet in the future. Remember, FIRST is not about winning. Sure, winning is nice and it has some benefits, but it's not the world. When team 5 didn't get chosen in Great Lakes or Nats, I was shocked, but there where some downfalls that I thought of when I thought long and hard. Not everyone can be/will be picked. FIRST was meant for people, and robot just bring us all together.

I'm very shocked to see this thread get like this. Please, think before you post. I realize that some teams want to know why, and that is fine, but send them a PM. In a few of these posts, it is kinda nasty by FIRST standards.

Please, please be nice. FIRST is about the fun you have during the on/off season, not about winning. Remember, FIRST is made by people, for people.