Buyers' remorse / Pig in a poke

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman

Please don't trivialize the challenge of getting inexperienced teams with rougher robots to cooperate as part of an alliance in qualifying.

Vet teams KNOW they need assists to seed high. Sometimes, partner teams simply don't have "it", no matter how much you try to "rally the troops". Robots don't move. Their pickup devices are poor to nonexistent. Their complete lack of knowledge of the rules and game cannot be overcome with a two minute refresher course. And please don't drop any "well you should work harder to get those robots to work at the event" line. Three NEOFRA teams (48, 3193, 4601 - part of a regional support alliance) arrived in Pittsburgh who were all very capable teams precisely because we support each other ALL YEAR LONG to ensure teams arrive at the event in solid shape. Let's stop with the patchwork help in the span of three days at an event - if you want all teams to be better at a competition, then START WORKING TOGETHER AND COLLABORATING WITH OTHER TEAMS IN YOUR REGION AHEAD OF TIME. It's not that hard...when you TRY. Then maybe these "forced teamwork" scenarios FIRST seems to adore may actually have a chance at bearing some fruit out on the field.

Anyway, after a few match cycles at Pittsburgh, I could quickly sort the wheat from the chaff, and based on how much chaff was on each stronger team's alliance, I could pretty clearly tell who was going to have a more favorable time seeding higher at the event. The final rankings (and assist scores) bore that out quite well.

I was not trying to trivialize it, if it came off that way I apologize.

I agree completely with your statements about bringing the level of the people up around you. That has been one of the big pushes the last couple of years here in VA and it only makes the competitions better when all of the teams continue to improve in quality.