[Joe G.]

I was wondering if you guys have any stories of helpful or just plain unhelpful alliance partners.

My two best ones; both of which come from this year's Savage Soccer tournament (not FVC, but very similar)

Good partner: In autonomous, our robot failed to detect a white line on the playing field and drove into the wall. Because the robot was supposed to be climbing stairs by this point in autonomous, it drove right over the 2.5 inch wall, and was hanging there by one wheel at the end of autonomous. Our partners then proceded to lift us back into play before doing anything else!

Unfortunate partner: Our partner's defensive robot deployed its blocking system, and drove past our scoring holes (the basic idea of the challenge was to put balls in holes in a large, beanbag style wall.) At this point, their incorrectly installed radio crystal fell out, blocking our entirely offensive robot from scoring for the entire match.