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Unread 02-04-2012, 04:31
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Austin2046 Austin2046 is offline
Design, Strategy & Scouting Mentor
FRC #2046 (Bear Metal)
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: Jan 2010
Rookie Year: 2007
Location: Maple Valley, WA
Posts: 175
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Re: Rookie Teams in Elims

I've wondered about this too, esspecially at champs. I remember in 2007 (our rookie year) our team was 5-2-0 (one of those losses being against 1114) on Curie and I believe we were ranked 11th. Thinking back, I've wondered if we weren't picked because our robot wasnt very attractive... despite being rather effective... or because we were a rookie team... despite having a reliable autonomous... or maybe we didnt fit in with the alliance captain's strategies... or maybe some other reason.

Generally speaking, when i'm looking for alliance partners I usually want to pick robots that can fit in to my predetermined strategies. Usually the first pick is a highly effective scoring robot, which can sometimes be a rookie team... i know at Seattle Cascade this year we were thinking alot about picking 3968 because despite being a rookie they were one of the best scorers on the field. Generally though the best offensive robots are not rookie teams. So then in a second pick the general role is often a defensive robot. Unfortunately most rookie teams don't spend much time thinking about a drive base for defense. I know our rookie year, we had 2 traction wheels, driven by 2 cims, and two omni wheels... it took hardly any effort to push us ...

Anyway, i think while there may be a little bias against rookie teams, the smart teams easily look past that, because they're simply asking themselves, "how do i win? and who will help us most to do that?" If I feel a rookie team best fills one of those roles and would work well with us, I don't hesitate to pick them.
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