New Qualification and seed method.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Duke461

it will simply be luck as to whether or not you play against an opponent that can balance on the bridge, and plans on balancing on the bridge.

It's simply luck if your alliance members can score balls, or if they're boxes on wheels that can't move.

Every team out there has been affected by luck in qualification matches. Our rookie year we were the 7th seed... not because we were good (I think we put up 2 tubes in Rack 'n roll the entire competition), but because we ended up on awesome alliances again and again. Fast forward to some other years, where we had a good robot but ended up lower in the seeding - in a particular game, our robot may have out-performed every other individual robot on the field, but we lost because our alliance, as a whole, was weaker than the other alliance.

The coopertition bridge isn't about luck - if your robot can manipulate the bridge, you can drive up it, lower it for the other alliance, and have them drive up as well. All a team needs to balance on the coopertition bridge is a drive train and some patience. Now, if no one on the field can manipulate the bridge, then you have a problem... but that's as much your fault as anyone else.