[Thad House]

Question A becomes much different when you are in a district system. Being the last pick means at minimum you are the 9 seed where nobody in the top 8 gets picked. So you would get 16 points from seeding. Then you get 1 point from getting picked last, and 30 points for winning. So you come out with 47 points. Being the 4 seed gives you 19 points, with an extra 13 from seeding, which gives you 32 points. So from a pure points perspective, winning from the 24th pick is better then loosing in the QF from the 4th seed. However, when the real world starts being added, that 24th pick is probably going to be in the low seeds, which would take away about 8 points. That turns the delta from +15 to +7. Add in likelyhood to get awards, and the actual likelyhood of making it to the semis, and I personally would take the 4th seed route. Especially with a game like this, were the 3rd pick was usually relegated to a ramp. That would mean we failed at our goal of building a competitive robot.

As for champs, I would pick being the 24th pick every time. At champs, the 24th pick is what makes or breaks the alliance, and I would gladly be the robot that makes that alliance. In addition, you could be dropping because of bad scouting, not because of a bad robot (Cough 973 2011 Cough)