[Brian Maher]

Originally Posted by VacioArconte

A small anecdote that shows how you could sell yourself:

We were high in the rankings at Utah and a team came to us to talk about their bot. They told us how they fixed some issues Friday night and if we could please watch their matches. While we didn't end up picking them, we did watch for them and I thought it was a very good way to sell themselves.

That being said, if you haven't changed anything, their scouting team probably has already made judgments on you and your lobbying probably won't have much of an impact.

Good luck!

This sums up my feelings on the matter pretty well. Actions speak louder than words. For anything that can be demonstrated on the field, the data my scouts and I collect trump any other self-promotion. That being said, some self-promotion that provides new information that cannot be observed from matches can be a good thing. It can be hard to observe the root cause of robot issues from watching a match, and even harder to observe corrective action. Telling a prospective alliance captain about issues and how they were resolved can help them look past less favorable data.

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

One piece of advise that hasn't been given yet, is to build relationships with teams long before they are ever in position to pick you. It's probably the least important reason to build relationships with other teams but having friends on the teams doing the picking just means they already know you and what your team is capable of. Go to off-season events, do group demonstrations, have team socials, etc.

This is a really important point. We all have in our heads teams that we consider friendly, good team players, or perennially successful. Attending offseasons and other event builds friendships and reputation. If I'm choosing between two identical robots, and one team is a friend or has a history of winning events and the other doesn't, the former is almost always getting picked. That being said, friendship is nowhere near as important as being the best option to fulfill our strategy goals for the alliance.

(That, and having friends is nice for its own sake )