Posted by Rob Zeuge at 03/29/2001 9:31 AM EST
Coach on team #121, Rhode Warrior, from University of Rhode Island and Naval Undersea Warfare Center.
In Reply to: Getting Picked
Posted by Bill Beatty on 03/29/2001 1:12 AM EST:
I agree that the sales pitches are mostly annoying, and our team also pays very little attention to them. The best sales pitch is showing that you can perform a function to help your alliance.
The biggest difficulty is trying to get accurate information on 85 teams. I predict that The top 2 teams will end up picking teams that they have played with at the nationals or at a regional. Because of the nature of these finals, it would not surprise me at all to see teams try to rebuild alliances that they had at regionals.
Is this fair...maybe not, but neither is life.
The moral of the story is...Be honest about your robot and driver abilities. If your best ability is to drive under the rail and reset the bridge by driving back over it, just let everyone in your match know.
If someone asks you to do something that you are not confident in, let them know. Several teams in NY asked us to drive under the bridge and aid in leveling it. Can we do that function, yes. Are we good at it, no.
Our honesty in situations like this helped us seed well despite a handful of awful matches.
Also remember that there are other awards than just the national champion, and some of them may mean more to a team. The most important thing is already accomplished, the experience that students gain from putting effort into this project will help them long after they have forgotten who this year's national champs are.
Anyway, Best of luck to everyone
Robert Zeuge
rzeu0470@postoffice.uri.edu