[Sunnykx]

I personally liked the averaged-ranking system for qualifications. It required teams at the Championship level to be excellent every single time in order to advance. I also think the rankings more accurately reflect robot ability than the win-loss system does. In the win-loss system, a robot that wins two matches 50-25 has the same ranking as the robot who wins two matches 150-25. Throughout this season, I felt that the top 8 seeded robots lining up as captains in eliminations looked far more deserving of being there than in past years when I would scratch my head at some of the teams who were represented there after looking past the first three or four seeds.


Perhaps it is more frustrating for teams who go to a single regional or two who don't have the time or the events to incrementally improve their robot and correct problems so that it is consistently performing at a high level. The District model lends itself well particularly well to fielding excellent robots at Championship. Our team competed in three smaller PNW District events before going to the District Championship. Each event taught us where we needed to improve if we wanted to be in contention to go to Worlds. It did not allow for sloppy play and it required us to perform well match after match after match. I think it reflects more the real engineering world as well. I would much rather fly in an airplane or drive a car that is consistently excellent than one that crashes 1 out of 3 times.

I was personally surprised at some of the inconsistent play at Worlds by some of the top robots who are in the Regional rather than the District model. They had become used to dazzling 2 out of 3 times at their regional competitions, potentially falling apart the other time and still being able to make it to Championship.

Our team (3663) made it to Finals in Curie because we consistently performed at a high level and chose partners who also reliably did so. We passed over teams who could amaze at times but imploded at others. We were at an advantage when those teams followed their same up and down pattern of variability in eliminations. We eventually lost to the better alliance, 148 and 1114. The best alliance in our division still made it to Einstein in this year's system.

If they go back to a win-loss model in 2016, we may change our strategy and go more for a high risk-high rewards type of alliance. It makes sense to adjust alliance-picking strategy to the one that helps us advance the furthest. I, for one, however, appreciated a competition that required us to hone our skills to perform well every single time.