2014 Sacramento Regional

[rahilm]

First off, I want to thank everyone involved in putting on this regional. It was a great event, as it always has been. I'm really proud of what our students accomplished this weekend. We had a very unconventional design from what most teams were doing, but we made it work.

Additionally, thank you to 1868 and 2073 for joining our alliance. You guys were both awesome alliance partners and we would pick you guys again without a second thought. Also a thank you to 2085, 1671, and 692 for giving us some really exciting quarterfinals matches. Finally, congrats to 971, 1678, and 766 for taking home the banner; you guys were unstoppable.

Originally Posted by Dr.Bot

Can't recall all, but 1(971) picked 2(1678), then 3(2085) picked 5(1671) from there I can reconstruct:

new 3# 2761 takes 100(26th)

#4 114(6) takes 2035(16)

new #5 4159(7) takes 599(18)

#6 1280(8) takes 4135(15)

#7 668(9) takes 2073(24)

#8 1388(10) takes 2551(17) and then 2144(19)

#7 1868(50) ?
#6 701(32)
#5 3250(4)
#4 115(51)
#3 1662(22)
#2 692(28)
#1 7669(31)


Don't ask me why 115 and 1868 made it into the finals except for friendship and the realization the number 1 seed was truly unstoppable. I think 971 and 1678 could have put a potato in as their 3rd pick and still have won. As a matter of fact they pretty much did score double their opponents in one match where 766 was stuck on the field.

To answer this question, no this was not a friendship pick or a throw in the towel pick. We were trying to build the best alliance possible. In fact, both 1868 and 2073 were in our top 8 pick list. Our personal analysis of our robot was that we were an OK high goal shooter, a decent truss robot, and a good inbounder. What were looking for in an alliance, based on what was left, was a good inbounder/assister (2073) and a good floor pickup/truss shot to human player (1868). We knew on Friday night that if we seeded, we would be a low seed. Our scouting team agreed that we would have to take some risks if we wanted to be competitive. We knew 1868 could be that second leg robot, but they weren't performing to their full capability Friday. On Saturday morning, we saw them getting better throughout their last few matches, and decided to take the chance. If they were at full capability (and, if you watch our quarterfinal matches with the finalist alliance, they were pretty close), they were an easy pick to make. I'm very happy with the work that our scouting team did in finding value in the lower rounds of alliance selections.