[MCC] Minimum Competitive Concept 2014

[RunawayEngineer]

Originally Posted by inkling16

That being said though, I would probably never encourage a team to build a robot like this. For whatever reason, most alliance selectors tend to pick robots that are bad at doing the "primary" task over teams that do other tasks exceptionally well and don't do the "primary" task at all. I would therefore be extremely nervous about going all-in on a design like 5288's, since it could be difficult to show off in quals and we might not get picked because other teams do not realize our potential to be a beneficial partner.

The "whatever reason" is poor scouting. In my experience, any team that significantly contributes will be noticed by the teams with solid scouting and good match strategy. I think making a robot that forgoes "primary" tasks and does other tasks well is a great build strategy. You will probably be ignored by the captains with poor scouting (whom you generally don't want to partner with anyway) and you can be noticed by the ones that scout and pick strategically.
And you can always make sure you are noticed by talking to the teams that will be in a position to pick. I have been on a high seeded team a number of times - never once did I have a team come to me to discuss their value as a 3rd partner. Any team that would commit to working with our strategy and could demonstrate their ability to do it would leap up my pick list.