[Andrew Blair]

Okay, big Pittsburgh feedback post.

First of all, though Pittsburgh is a small regional and it's quite reasonable to say that there will be a few teams who play against the same teams all the time, it was pretty bad. It didn't affect us too much, but we were with or against 1629 in ~75% of matches, and others often as well. We didn't mind it, and I still thought our match scheduling was okay, but for others, not so much. I saw at least thee teams go back to back or every-other-match a couple of times, and they were still playing the same teams. Again, we didn't notice it alot, but other teams had a hard time.


Rookie advantage time. Our choosing alliance partner, though an excellent team that was alot of fun, not to mention having built their robot in only four weeks, and shaving 80 pounds practice day, was seeded #1 alliance.
Their robot however, was not so good. Literally a box bot, they could not score, descore, or climb too many ramps effectively. At least one qualifying match they did not run at all. So, their contribution to their seeding was limited to the few times that they climbed ramps. It appears that they could not have seeded any lower if they wanted to. They were basically in the top eight regardless of if they ran or not.

In the long run though, being first alliance actually put them at a disadvantage. They had first pick, and could pick what they felt was the best possible alliance partner from the beginning, but they could not pick again until last. So, effectively, they had one excellent hybrid robot, an excellent defending robot(#1990, thanks!), and themselves. They had no chance to pick a scoring robot second choice(all gone by that time), and as a result, they had one robot who could score and ramp, and two screening robots, only one of which could quickly climb the ramp. Had they been seeded lower or had been picked, they would have been on an alliance with two strong robots to start with. Their alliance didn't really have a chance.

And therein lies the problem with a non-random match selection process. A similar thing happened another alliance, who was a rookie box carried into the top eight by "random" selection. There are consequential reasons why rookies should not be helped into the top eight. If they score and win their way in, more power to them. However, if they do not, they actually stand a better chance of winning if they are not put there.


Again, we had a great time and I had more fun than I've ever had at a regional I think, but when the cards are stacked against an alliance with no way to reverse it, it's not really a good thing.