Re: The Update, it fixes nothing! (AKA: why is everyone so excited about Update #16?)
 

I have to respectfully completely disagree here. 1511 has selected its own alliance at least once every single year (many years more than once), and we rely 95% on our scouting data, and watching team performance. For all the teams that hand out robot fliers Saturday morning, we don't get them. If you go pump yourself to our pit crew, those aren't the members that develop our selection list. The other 5% has a little bit to do with knowing teams and knowing their histories, and usually doesn't play in as much as it did this year (with the weirdness of the ranking systems and difficulties with the new control system, in some cases we had to "guess" at what the team was capable of). From my knowledge most of the big teams work the same way. You have to perform on the field. And while the initial cut at our pick list doesnt even look at current rank, I would say 99% of our pick lists, the bottom 10 teams dont even make it on there, because if you are at the bottom, there is a reason.

Re: The Update, it fixes nothing! (AKA: why is everyone so excited about Update #16?)
 

Not always true. We just got back from the Israel Regional. This regional had a lot of comm problems. thanks to that, the whole competition was delayed to the third day and every team had only 3 matches to prove itself. my team scouted the field performance, not even looking if the teams won or not or their final rankings, and our notes gave us the true info we needed for selecting alliances and protected us from over confident speeches of others. we needed a Defensive bot as the third member of the alliance and we picked up a team that was pretty low in the rankings. they didn't get a single goal the whole day - so they didn't get ANY Coopertition bonus that day. there were teams that found themselves really low just because of comm issues. When team addressed us, we always asked for explanations why the low ranking. If the excuse was good enough - we took them as an option.
After qualifications we were 2nd in ranking. I admit that got there not because we lost on purpose or because we got the best bot in the competition - it's because we won with smart game-strategy (not out-of-game strategy) and we knew that with the ranking system there is no point in defense. every game we prayed not to tie for 0-0 cuz that's the worst. We tried to win but we hoped that our rivals will at least score too. We proved, again, that no matter how good is your bot, there's no substitute for a good strategy.
Yes, the ranking system isn't perfect but that's the rules of the competition - deal with it. Is it fair that we lost our semi-final in a coin toss? I think not but that's the rules we had due to no time for a rematch. Update 16 didn't fix the problem but it gave us motivation to at least win.

Re: The Update, it fixes nothing! (AKA: why is everyone so excited about Update #16?)
 

You can show off your robot's ability while playing for the opposing alliance if you know your alliance is incapable of winning.

For example, an alliance consisting of 148, 469, and 217 against an alliance of 25, team dodo 1, and team dodo 2.. with broken drive trains and the inability to kick balls.. I would much rather than team dodo 1 and team dodo 2 block our goals while we go score for 148's alliance. If we are able to score 15 balls for them, any good scout will pickup our robots abilities.

This will give the other alliance 5 points more than us... but if they incur more than 5 penalty points, then it doesn't make a difference.

Philosophical, whether this is right or not is another question. Are we teaching our students go out and lose a match? I'm not sure anymore. They are winning in the long run but something does not sit right about "losing" a match. It's not the way I've known to play a "competition". The idea is of co-opertition is uncomfortable - maybe because it does not work with this game.

Re: The Update, it fixes nothing! (AKA: why is everyone so excited about Update #16?)
 

Bingo our scouts watch for "number of balls scored", not "number of balls scored for your alliance".

But yes, the Philosophical question really has me confused, as playing to the rules gives you the option of playing to win each match (competition) OR playing to win the event overall(coopertition). But yet FIRST has stated in update 16 that the point is competition (to win), yet it is based on the Coopertition patent (to maximize seed through your opponents score). I'm taking some liberal leaps here, but this is how I see it and its insanely confusing to understand what we are "supposed" to do.

Re: The Update, it fixes nothing! (AKA: why is everyone so excited about Update #16?)
 

Yes, one of the obvious forms of advertising is fliers. Others include banners and mascots and big flags for the field. Most of these I consider fluff. There are many ways to advertise yourself. Each match you are advertising yourself in ways that people don't consider. For instance, if I have any say in the matter I would refuse to pick the best team at the regional if I know them to be uncooperative in matches. Advertise yourself from one drive team to another. Most teams I've met take that into consideration when picking. Afterall, teams with your mentality(want to control their destiny) tend to want to decide how they are going to play. You can advertise yourself by how you play on the field. Scoring is nice, but sometimes a team just wants a guy that can do (....). Think of Rack n' Roll. Some alliance selecters would settle for a robot that couldn't score for one that could be a very quick ramp. Yes, alot of this will be picked up by scouts. I'm not belittling their use. I'm just saying alot of teams forget that they are always being watched. Going for top 8 is nice, but impressing the top 8 is just as good.

Also, to the effect of scoring on yourself being a way to show off to scouts...I think perhaps it would be best to keep points classified. Not by which goal they are on. But by which ones are defended against. For instance, if a team scores 5 points without defense against their opponent I'm less impressed then if they score past their own alliance doing defense. It's hard to judge sometimes...but it would be well worth knowing if you have the scouting force to tell.

Re: The Update, it fixes nothing! (AKA: why is everyone so excited about Update #16?)
 

I agree with Kim. We typically ignore all data given to us by a team about their robot, and rely only on scouting to tell us what we need to know, because people tell you what their robot was *designed* to do, not what it actually *can* do. We can only presume that the same is true of most other teams.