[Lowfategg]

Since everyone is so interested, I will tell my perspective of what happen on Einstein while coaching 2016:

During Semi-final 2-2, 177 lost a gas shock off their arm making them unable to get tubes from the floor. They rushed the robot off of the field and made some quick repairs in the dark. They got their robot back onto the field with seconds left. Our plan was to have 781 deploy their mini-bot because we felt that we had no chance of getting 2nd or 3rd in the mini-bot race against the opposing alliance; so while 781 was deploying, we could keep scoring tubes, while still getting 4th in the mini-bot race. At the start of the match 781 died during auto-mode and 177 had some lesser troubles due to the gas shock issue in the last match. We kept the score close as we could, but without defense to slow 254 or 111 down we had no chance.

After that match, 177 made a few more tweaks to get their bot back up to 100%, while 781 took their bot off the field to do a systems check. During this time 177's mini-bot started smoking (which got the field crew to get out the fire extinguisher). Luckily, 177 has a small army of spare mini-bots. 781 checked their bot over and found no issues, they brought the bot back onto the field and tethered up to show that everything was working fine. We quickly checked with 781 and they felt everything was good, so we did not call a backup.

A lot of people say we should have called a backup. Here is my take on it. 781 died due to an issue which is still unknown, they proved their robot was working after that match. A backup is to be called when a robot is completely out of the running and can not play. 781 believed their robot was fine and ready to compete. As an alliance captain, we respect everyone equally, if 781 says they are fine, as alliance captain, I am not going to call them out for what might have been a fluke. Everyone keeps taking about how 330 or 2054 are better robots than 781 (perhaps giving us an advantage over 111 and 254), but that is not the point of a backup. We were an alliance that had played together - and we wanted to keep it that way. We believed in 781. Their play and good judgment helped us to Einstein. The entire alliance felt that they would function in the 2nd finals match. We'd make the same decision again given the circumstances.

As a note to Seth from 694, I could not hear a thing down on the field on my phone. I did read your text, but we had already decided to let 781 run. As an aside fact – the backup bot from Archimedes would have been picked at random from the finalist.

Anyway, I am planning on posting a thank you thread sometime this week. I been busy over the last week so I was unable to.