[Brian Maher]

Last year was our first time being an alliance captain, and this year is the first year we've been prepared for it.

I'm curious how other teams go about making their pick lists. I don't mean who to pick so much as the process by which who to pick is determined on an event-wide scale. This year we've experimented and found a low-tech system that works with our 100% paper scouting system.

The night after Day 1, we make a big spreadsheet listing every team at the event, go through the paper scouting sheets we have on each team at the event and classify them by tote-feeding location (HP/LF/either) and role (stacker, capper, etc). We also put together a couple sentences describing the robot's performance.

Based on the robot's performance, its compatibility with our strategy, and what the drive team said after a match with them (if we had one), all the teams are rated on a 0-5 scale:

5: ideal/best
4: desirable
3: moderately desirable
2: neither desirable nor undesirable
1: undesirable
0: do not pick under any circumstance (reserved for severe reliability issues and major strategy or drive team incompatibility)

From there, within the 5s, we go past the decimal point and identify who the most desirable team is (5.9), the next most desirable team (5.8), etc.

We do this for the 4s, the 3s, etc until we have ~26 teams rated past one digit. Using the fractional ratings, we rank all the teams, and we have a preliminary pick list. We tweak it during the day as we learn more about teams and hear more from the drive team.

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While our system works, my one qualm is that it's time consuming to prepare. I'm curious how other teams do it, especially the ones who mathematically calculate pick list rankings.

How does your team identify its best partners among 30-75 teams?