Re: Highest Seed not Chosen for Finals
 

We were ranked 28th out of 31 team in Pittsburgh and were picked first by the 8th place alliance. The teams realized that we had had some problems earlier on with our pneumatics that were worked out.

Re: Highest Seed not Chosen for Finals
 

Seeding while it is one factor to look at when considering the quality of a team and their robot it defenitly isn't the most important. My team relies on our extensive team of scouts to choose the best and most capable robot.

In my opinion one of the most fun aspects of FIRST is diplomacy and getting your team recognized even though you may not have that great a ranking. While it defenitly isn't as important at some of the smaller regionals, at the larger regionals and the nations where often 80+ teams are present it is very important to publicize your team. No matter how many scouts a team has its hard to really keep every robot in your mind.

I remember back in 2003 my team was probably too good at publicizing itself. Our robot while capable, barely ran. After every match we had to rebuild the drivetrain, its autonomous was shaky, it only worked half the time(although it was effective when it did work). Despite all these problems we managed to get chosen first round by the seventh seed. We defenitly didn't deserve that position and probably hurt our alliance because they weren't allowed to choose another team that was more capable than us. That was ages ago, things havent' always gone that well. ;)

Re: Highest Seed not Chosen for Finals
 

Here's a "sob story" for you all. My freshman year (2001) the competition with the balancing ramp. We were ranked 6th in our division at nationals going into our last match. Once the match started another team and ourselves piggybacked over the bridge and as a result the bridge popped off its fulcrum. We stopped the clock and got as many points. We checked the final standings and we were in 9th place by .5 points! We didn't get picked. Needless to say I was crushed. To see us going from the allaince with the 2nd seed, to being knocked out of competition was more than I could take. Oh well, I used that as a sringboard to launch the rest of my FIRST high school experience.

Re: Highest Seed not Chosen for Finals
 

I can't agree more. So often do you see teams that really can't contribute to their teams much get picked by a team due to poor scouting. I know for a fact that most of the good teams have extensive scout teams that rigorously pick apart the little nuiances of a team as to why they are seeded where they are. If they are an amazing team that just got unlucky as to get paired with broken partners several times, that's noted. More often that not a scouting team will do it's job. But it's when they don't do their jobs that the real diamonds in the rough get unnoticed.

Re: Highest Seed not Chosen for Finals
 

this has happened to us numerous times at nats and regional events. we don't really have much of a PR team. Usually every year we are passed over even though we consistently place in the top 10 at every regional year after year. the same holds true for nats.

Re: Highest Seed not Chosen for Finals
 

2002 We we were ranked 11th out of aprox 40 after being 2-4 all competition until our last 2 matches where teams Expressidly calluded against us and descored to lose a match, because it would knock their friends above us who would pick them.

They throw a match, so someone else would be ranked above us, because they knew that they would be pick by the other team. Thats just about as backwards as it gets. Atleast the way I understood it to happen from the drivers who were clearly upset.

Re: Highest Seed not Chosen for Finals
 

Many posts in this thread point out how alot of teams who have seeded do a poor job of scouting and are unprepared when they go up to choose a team. At Finger Lakes we had done scouting before the regional, on practice day and during the day and it still wasn't satisactory. For one thing alot of team lie about their abilities and this year in particular it takes more people to watch robots during a match. Alot of teams don't have the personel to do this. This is why it's important to have a unoversal database so people know who is there and who is not.

Re: Highest Seed not Chosen for Finals
 

At New Haven 3 years ago we were the number 1 seed for a while then lost two matches and droped down to 10th we were not picked. We were very peeved considering some teams that were picked were from the bottom 40.

Re: Highest Seed not Chosen for Finals
 

562 was seeded 12th in Manchester and not picked. We were shocked, since we were very productive throughout the competition, never tipped over, never broke down, and had some good matches with some of the higher seeded teams. Our record was 6-2-1 (that tie really hurt our rank), with the 2 losses coming in matches where one of our alliance members was broken.

At least we got into the very last match as a substitute for 175 (their robot took a beating and it's a testament to their design that it lasted as long as it did), which we unfortunately weren't able to win -- another robot in our alliance couldn't move, and our other partner accidentally committed a 30 point penalty.

We've decided that we need to be more visible next year -- our performance on the field obviously isn't enough! Keep an eye out next year for the team with blue hair. ;)

Re: Highest Seed not Chosen for Finals
 

There are a few reasons why the 9th, 10th, 11th, etc seed don't get picked...

-The robot doesn't match the alliance strategy
-The team might have had a few lucky breaks being paired with great teams to push them higher.
-Not enough PR/visual appeal power (small teams suffer from this)
-Didn't play the game the right way (i.e. smaller pusher bots vs. cappers)

Remember, it's not a game until luck is added. :)

Re: Highest Seed not Chosen for Finals
 

1640 was 23/55 and we were not picked...

Re: Highest Seed not Chosen for Finals
 

Great point. Alot of the people in the thread are hurt and feel like a jilted prom date and fail to see that maybe they weren't the right choice for such and such an alliance and just because you are seeded high does not mean you will be picked.

Re: Highest Seed not Chosen for Finals
 

We placed 15th in the chesapeake this year, and when the top seeded teams started picking the teams right below them I was so scared that it was going to keep happening and I was going to end up an alliance captain. We had done no scouting, and pretty much all the teams I knew were already in the top 8. I was frantic until someone finally picked someone other than the people in the top 8.

Definitely throw together a scouting team for the philly regional, don't want to risk looking like idiots...

Re: Highest Seed not Chosen for Finals
 

We were ranked 1-3 at UTC last year until our last qualification match, which was gave teams right below us a huge amount of qualification points, and dropped us down to 11th.

We werent picked.. :rolleyes:

Re: Highest Seed not Chosen for Finals
 

kind of off topic but kind of not...

93 was last at BMR and picked for finals.

game recognized game