[archiver]

Posted by Jerry Eckert, Engineer on team #140 from Tyngsboro, MA High School and New England Prototype/Brooks Automation.

Posted on 4/7/99 11:10 AM MST


In Reply to: On Deck posted by mike aubry on 4/6/99 8:51 PM MST:



I think this is a solution to a non-problem.

Setting aside the rejection issue, I don't see where there is any real
problem with three team alliances.

A few people have stated they wouldn't feel right if they didn't have an
opportunity to contribute by participating in the eliminations. If their
entire team feels the same way they have the option of declining to
participate and leaving the slot for another team which has no such
reservations. I don't think you'll have any trouble finding 16 teams
out of 160+ which would be thrilled to be chosen as the third member of
an alliance -- whether they actually ended up participating in a match
or not.

I believe having the third team as a full member of the alliance adds
to the competition by adding an additional level of strategy to both
the selection process and the matches themselves.

- Jerry


: Hey gang, here's an idea! Lets just say that the top 16 teams each get to select (no rejections) their alliance partners. Then instead of picking another team, an 'on deck' team is positioned at each side of the field and are their to replace broken down robots. These 'on deck' teams would be assigned based on the highest seeding positions, not selected as part of the 16 alliances. Thus rewarding the teams that worked hard to get highly seeded, but were unfortunately not selected. The 'on deck teams' would be available to replace broken down robots, as that occurs, and would then be part of that particular alliance, and would feel like they had contributed to the team. This would also eliminate issues related to third team alliances that don't get to participate in the battle. The 4 highest ranked 'On deck' teams would be assigned a color and a field, followed by the next 4 highest, and the next 4 highest, so that there would be 3 teams waiting. Although this would only get 12 more teams possibly involved, it would give the alliance situation a new wrinkle, due to the fact that it could change strategy and planning, much like we have to during the qualifying matches. It also eliminates the ability for teams to pass, so that they could be selected later as the 3rd alliance partner - keeping everything a bit cleaner, and eliminating hard feelings related to such, as well as 'Benching of teams that don't get to play'. So, What do you all think of this idea?