Gracious Professionalism?

[Tuba4]

The following is a recap of an incident I witnessed at a recent regional. The names have been omitted to protect the not so innocent.

My team was on the bubble of being an alliance captain. If one or two alliance captains were picked, we would move up and select. I was busily finalizing our pick list when a student from another team approached me and another one of our mentors. This student told us their robot was broken, would not run and we should not pick them. I took this individual at his word. I could see his team's pit. They were two or three spots away from us. The robot was there, but no repair activity was taking place. This was at most 5 or 10 minutes away from the start of the alliance selection process. So it certainly looked like the robot was beyond repair.

The selection process began. And as expected we did move into the process and became an alliance captain. We were subsequently picked by a higher ranked alliance.

The plot thickens. When it came time for the number one alliance to make their second choice, lo and behold they picked the team that told us their robot was broken. This alliance of course went on to win the regional.

Thoughts anyone? Ever had an experience like that?