[jspatz1]

I can offer you our perspective for what it is worth.

To be truthful, there is very little your team members can say or do off of the field to "market" your team/robot for alliance picking. We look for alliance picks exclusively through performance and attributes displayed during qual matches. Veteran teams learn that the claims about robot capabilities made by team members anxious to be considered may or may not be true. The only information that scouters can really trust is what is displayed on the field. This can be technical capabilities of the robot, skill and smart choices by the drivers, or a cooperative drive team helps make a match plan and sticks to it.

The best marketing tool is to execute what you can do on the field. If you have an attribute that you think a highly ranked team should want, concentrate on displaying that attribute rather than just winning matches. We do not look at win/loss record or rankings when considering alliance picks. We look for capabilities and smart play that will help our alliance win. If you get the opportunity to play a qual match with a team you hope to join in elims, concentrate on fulfilling your role, and show them you can be a smart, cooperative partner.

The members in our pit are not the ones making scouting and pick decisions, so it does little good to make your pitch to them. If you have a capability that you want us to know about, ask one of our members to get word to our scouters to watch for you and your capability before you play, then go out there and execute it. We can't hope to notice every skill of every team/robot, so we are happy to have you tell us when/where to look. If you have a capability that can help our alliance win, we absolutely want to know about it. But let us know before you play, so we can see it with our own eyes.