Quote:
Originally Posted by Whatever
I am missing something - aren't there more lottery picks than teams in the lottery?
I count 17 lottery picks of 14 teams in the lottery. (I count 11 host teams)
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There's actually 12-- Intel Folsom has a host team, 5901, that isn't listed on the chart but is listed elsewhere on the website.
I calculated 14 teams in the lottery for a lottery of 14 slots. 34 teams automatically advance, including 5 winning alliance captains. The rest are placed in a lottery. In theory there should be no issues with that, but there are. My primary issue with it is that teams have no idea if they're advancing or not until February. So say you're the winning alliance captain, and next eligible to advance and in the lottery. You're only competition is this month. What are you supposed to do until February? Not build your robot, so you don't waste time and money if you're not selected? Build your robot in the couple of weeks until the state championship? That's a risky gamble. Plus, NorCal is still calculating on 16 qualifiers physical qualifiers, in which case there are fewer lottery slots than teams, and winning alliance 2nd pick could be chosen over a captain.
It would make more sense, especially if the number of lottery slots is equal to number of teams, to just make winning alliance captains automatically go. Then there's no question of if they get to advance. There is already one winning alliance captain in this lottery.
If the number of slots is greater, then clearly there's space for all winning alliance captains to advance. And it raises another question: are they going to fill up the lottery with next next eligible teams? Or are they going to advance winning alliance captains, and then draw the lottery for the last seats. Either way, teams who have rightfully earned a spot won't know if they actually have until February, which makes it hard to iterate on the robot.