Quote:
Originally Posted by Josh Fox
As my first year back in FIRST after graduating high school in 2010, I grew to love this game. Obviously I'm somewhat biased because of my team's great amount of success, but I absolutely loved the strategy options this game presented. You had your inbounders, trussers, and finishers you could assemble in a variety of formations/zones. The fact that there was only one game piece meant that something like 2/3 of a given match you were playing without a ball. What do you do with that time? Defend? Get into position to start the next cycle? Run a pick for your partner? All great options that often had to be decided on the fly.
And as far as the "incapable partners dragging down good teams" thing, you can either complain about it or do something about. Instead of complaining that you're "stuck with" fridgebot 9000 for a match, go offer some help. Maybe one of their mechanisms isn't working how they intended because something is misaligned and you can figure out a way to fix how their motors mount or improve gears meshing that might help. I know we and several other teams even developed simple inbounding mechanisms that could be modified and attached to almost any robot. Now your rookie who struggled to make a drivetrain move can assist with the best of them.
Maybe their programmer is inexperienced or made a simple mistake so their auton doesn't work or controls aren't responding properly. Spend 5 minutes to go talk to a team and say "Hey, it looked like your auton didn't run how you wanted it to last match, is there anything we can do to help you review your code?" Now they've got code that gives your team an additional 5 points to start the match.
Instead of complaining about how other teams bring yours down, you can always focus on bringing them up. Sure, you're helping yourself to have a better chance to win a match, but you're also doing the same for them. Isn't that the whole point of this "coopertition" thing I keep hearing so much is about?
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This is exactly what 1678, 254, and probably many other teams did to ensure that they would have competent alliance partners during quals. While this might not be a feasible option for every team, I do feel that forcing teams to help other teams improve their robot and code helps create strong partnerships. Many of our mentors now adore the rookie teams that they have "adopted" and are striving to keep in contact with them to help them in the future. I think that, intentionally or not, the assist point aspect of aerial assist helped transform the culture of our team, and possibly many others.