[FoleyEngineer]

Originally Posted by IKE

The draft seems to work pretty well at regionals with a lot of depth. This year we went to MWR, WMR, and GLR. These were all crazy tough regionals with a lot of depth. 910 was the 24th pick at GLR and that was a great machine.

I think good scouting is the key to picking the best alliance. We were working on our bot after every event - improving the hybrid code, adding stronger arms, improving our launcher accuracy and timing, etc. Our won/loss record didn't show that. Also, who you're partnered with / against makes a huge difference. At "picking time" we were 4-3-1 in 25th place. When the #1 alliance talked to us and asked us how things stood, we told them that we had our hybrid working well with programmable delays and curves based on any of the 3 starting positions, our launcher was all set and we were ready to go. In the playoffs we scored 3 to 4 hurdles per match (when asked to hurdle, vs. handoff to 217), and got 3 to 4 lines in hybrid, plus knocked down the balls. I don't know about the other regionals but a 3rd pick that gives you 52 points is probably a steal isn't it?

If you only go by standings or how they did in the match you watched (where something might have broken), then you can easily draw the wrong conclusion. You need to visit them and see for yourself. Also, some teams have a way of stepping it up when it counts. When you see big-name teams lower in the rankings you often have to ignore that and go visit them. They may lose a ton of matches and have problems but get them all fixed and begin to "peak" Saturday at noon. It's like a race car that doesn't run right all during the qualifying matches, but then they find and fix the problem just before the big race. Only by visiting their pits can you find that out. The stats alone just don't cut it.