When I was a student on a FIRST team, I did a lot of alliance picking. More than anything else, what I looked for was a team that could fit into our general strategy. What this usually meant was a team who was willing to work together with us, as an alliance for the best overall strategy. Not all teams necessarily had "the best" robot (whatever that even means), and a lot of them weren't ranked very highly either, but recognizing each team's strengths and weakness and working together on dynamic strategy we were able to make some surprisingly strong alliances.
If a team said something like "I'm the alliance captain so what I say goes" or "I can do x really well so I'm going to do x all match regardless of what our strategy was" or "defense is for people who can't play offense so we're not doing it", we definitely wouldn't accept their invitation to play with them or invite them to join our alliance, because that wouldn't be fun or successful. Basically, being a team player, being able to strategize, and being nice people makes you stand out.
There are a lot of teams I've really enjoyed working with or spending time with:
11, 121, 126, 175, 176, 177, 178, 181, 190, 195, 228, 230, 236, 500, 558, 716, 1024, 1071, 1099, 1100, 1592, 1816, 1902, 2064
In particular, our alliance at the 2007 CT Regional stands out to me- our partners were 195 and 558. We just had a great time. The mentors were inspiring, the students were friendly, we had a lot of fun playing matches, and our strategy squeaked us through some really close and competitive matches. I had a blast, and I made some friends that I'm still in touch with today. Other members of my team feel the same, our alliance just clicked really well.
You're all filled with wonderful people who are a pleasure to work with. Thanks to all of you and many more for making my
FIRST experience so special.
