Re: Serpentine Draft Alliance Parings, Like/Dislike
 

I still agree with you. We wouldnt have beaten a tough 968/25/2459 matchup in the semis without our 3rd partner 2437, most definitely. In fact, I still cant believe it. I haven't even watched vids yet, since I was focused only on our team.
My point was that there are some situations, "often enough," to have made the comment. It doesnt always happen. I was trying to allude to where each and every teammate be a major contributor evenly spread in order to be successful at winning, such as having in this year's game 3 trackballs, per alliance.:D

Re: Serpentine Draft Alliance Parings, Like/Dislike
 

I think I understand your point. Last year, the 3rd alliance partner was very helpful. They would be another scorer (ususally fairly effective because they would face little to no defense), play defense on the other alliance's top scorers and climb ramps at the end. This year, however, thier role isn't as big. Most of the time, the third alliance partner is a lap bot (due to the fact they would be the 3rd hurdler or the regional isn't as deep). The points earned by a lap bot is usually around 20 (or 6 laps and 2 lines in hybrid). Last year, however, a 3rd alliance partner could score/play defense and then climb on ramps for 30 points.

Re: Serpentine Draft Alliance Parings, Like/Dislike
 

The serpentine system definitely helps to even out the different alliances, thereby creating more interesting finals. However, the unfortunate thing is that not always the best teams end up making it to the georgia dome. For example, we were the 3rd seeded team, and then we picked team 1771, and 1999. Unfortunately our alliance only reached the semi-finals. But i feel like 1771 deserved to go to nationals with their robot this year. On the other hand its also no fun to have one alliance which just dominates the elimination rounds. Perhaps there could be a 6th team at every regional which could go to nationals every year. Like a robot picked by the judges, which they felt deserved to go to nationals in addition to the winning alliance, to the rookie all-star team, and the chairman's award winners.

Re: Serpentine Draft Alliance Parings, Like/Dislike
 

I think you mean a 7th team. The EI award winner qualifies also.:D

Re: Serpentine Draft Alliance Parings, Like/Dislike
 

It's happened before...and probably won't happen again. There were "special circumstances" involved.

Re: Serpentine Draft Alliance Parings, Like/Dislike
 

There already is a judges' award, and I think it would be a great idea to possibly let the team awarded it to go to Nationals. I'm sure there are many teams that aren't Chairman's material, aren't rookies, and don't fall into the EI Award category that deserve to go anyway. This would be optional, though: the judges would only give the award if they felt there was a team that truly deserved it. (Isn't the award already optional?)

Re: Serpentine Draft Alliance Parings, Like/Dislike
 

I think there's an optional 2nd Judges Award, if I'm not mistaken.

Re: Serpentine Draft Alliance Parings, Like/Dislike
 

And a third. Judges may give one, two, three, or even no Judges' Awards. (Or more, if they so desire and there is enough trophies to go around.)

Re: Serpentine Draft Alliance Parings, Like/Dislike
 

I think good scouting is the key to picking the best alliance. We were working on our bot after every event - improving the hybrid code, adding stronger arms, improving our launcher accuracy and timing, etc. Our won/loss record didn't show that. Also, who you're partnered with / against makes a huge difference. At "picking time" we were 4-3-1 in 25th place. When the #1 alliance talked to us and asked us how things stood, we told them that we had our hybrid working well with programmable delays and curves based on any of the 3 starting positions, our launcher was all set and we were ready to go. In the playoffs we scored 3 to 4 hurdles per match (when asked to hurdle, vs. handoff to 217), and got 3 to 4 lines in hybrid, plus knocked down the balls. I don't know about the other regionals but a 3rd pick that gives you 52 points is probably a steal isn't it?

If you only go by standings or how they did in the match you watched (where something might have broken), then you can easily draw the wrong conclusion. You need to visit them and see for yourself. Also, some teams have a way of stepping it up when it counts. When you see big-name teams lower in the rankings you often have to ignore that and go visit them. They may lose a ton of matches and have problems but get them all fixed and begin to "peak" Saturday at noon. It's like a race car that doesn't run right all during the qualifying matches, but then they find and fix the problem just before the big race. Only by visiting their pits can you find that out. The stats alone just don't cut it.

Re: Serpentine Draft Alliance Parings, Like/Dislike
 

I like the Serpentine Draft a lot more than the regular way. It adds a lot of balance to the alliance selection process, preventing the top few alliances from becoming too powerful.

If you give the top teams the ability to pick 2 of the best possible teams, like the other way, you tend to end up with an alliance which can dominate all the other ones, and in some cases not even create that much of a challenge doing so.


One thing I think would be an interesting addition to the system would be to prevent the top 8 teams from picking each other. This might add a new element of strategy to the selection process and could significantly level the playing field for all of the 8 alliances. Both of the regionals I went to this year had a number one team go and pick another high seeded team (top 5), and then go on to win every single match they played in the finals.


While Serpentine (and definitely the addition I mentioned) don't give as much of a bonus to teams that have earned their way to #1, consider that in most cases such teams are in those positions because they are good. Does a team that already has an advantage really need more of one? ;)

Re: Serpentine Draft Alliance Parings, Like/Dislike
 

The only thing I would be skeptical about in your suggestion, NOT to have the top 8 pick from each other is teams "throwing the towel" in some matches to lower themselves to pick each other.
Evening the playing field should have consideration, but ultimately, if another team is consistently good each year, I would talk story with them and ask how they do certain things, asking for advise.
I have rarely heard of any team that wasn't willing to share.
We have always admired teams such as 254, 233, 25 and especially team 368 year after year. Over the past several years, we have become pretty good friends as they have shared what they have built.
In fact, our robot base is very similar to what 254 built in '05 as we studied their website photos and took pictures of their bot last year, being next to them in the pit. They had no problems with that.
We may not have capabilities as the top teams out there, but we can certainly strive to do so, experiencing a few successes along the way.

Re: Serpentine Draft Alliance Parings, Like/Dislike
 

To me this question boils down to one very simple question: Do you want to see the best teams win?

Sure everyone can provide examples where things worked out different ways. If we assume that the seeding process actually works and puts the best teams at the top seeds, the serpentine draft works against those "best" teams actualy taking medals home.

IMHO, if FIRST wants us to achieve the recognition that sports like football, basketball, etc. have achieved they need to make it less of a science fair and more of a competition. The whole system seems to be designed so that any team can win. Wasn't it Woodie Flowers that talked about how false praise doesn't really do anything to boost your self confidence? Every year we have a "champion" who is... maybe the 65th best robot in the nation? (4 divisions, 8 top seeds and 8 first picks per division) It'd be almost impossible to have the best 3 teams in the country win the championship.

When "co-operatition" was introduced, it was sold as a model of the business world, where companies have to work together to succeeed. When introduced it worked quite well. You'd often have the top two teams at the event win. The serpentine draft system works against that mental model of trying to replicate the business world.

Re: Serpentine Draft Alliance Parings, Like/Dislike
 

I'm not sure that the draft is as much an issue as the seeding methods. I have seen teams that were not even top 25 in performance get ranked in the top 8 because of lucky alliance pairing, while some top two or three teams (like metal in motion) were not ranked.

I was always told not to complain unless you had a solution, but in this case, I don't see an easy one. I know First doesn't want to go back to one-on-one, but maybe a combination? do the current three on three, AND some one on one, and combine the two scores to rank? I would like to see the best teams advance, not the ones that got several lucky alliance pairings.

Re: Serpentine Draft Alliance Parings, Like/Dislike
 

Serpentine draft adds an aspect to FIRST that the regular draft doesn't. Teamwork. The reason that the 8th seed won at Atlanta was that they used tremendous teamwork and each robot performed as well as it should have.

As far as this year's game, the first two robots in an alliance are providing a majority, if not almost all offensive points for its matches. This game however does require a lot of teamwork to get the balls in the hands of the top robots and keeping traffic jams to a minimum.

I like the serpentine system as it also adds a bit of suspense for spectators. I think spectators getting interested is a good thing.

Re: Serpentine Draft Alliance Parings, Like/Dislike
 

The 8th seed didn't win at Atlanta, they were eliminated in the quarterfinals. The number one seeded alliance won. The main reason they won is that they had a good bot to start with, and were able to pick first. They picked an unseeded team that arguably had one of the best bots at the competition. This is my problem with the seeding. Why were some of the best teams not in the 8?