[Chris Hibner]

I'm going to make some arguments here in support of a coopertition seeding method. Please note that I don't necessarily agree with these arguments, I'm just presenting them here.

1) A Coopertition ranking system builds strength-of-schedule into the ranking. If team A wins 15-3 and team B wins 15-12, then team B's win should be rewarded more since their opponent's were most likely better. All wins are not created equal, and the coopertition method helps incorporate this into the rankings.

2) The Coopertition schedule allows better robots to rise to the top of the rankings. Let's say alliance A (a good alliance) plays alliance C, and alliance B (a GREAT world-beater alliance) also plays alliance C. Alliance A wins 15-4, which is a decent qualifying score. Alliance B is so good that by the time they score 15 points (same as alliance A could score), there is enough time left in the match to score 6 balls for alliance C, which significantly raises their qualifying score. If Alliance C is is good enough to do this, they should be handsomely rewarded with a good qualifying score.

3) The Coorpertition system encourages offensively designed robots. Many people in FIRST would rather see the game played with a offense/defense split around 80%/20%. The Coopertition system rewards high scores, so teams are more likely to develop offensive robots.