How will Alliance captains pick ?

[MrJohnston]

It is really going to depend on the competition.... If we are so fortunate as to be a captain this weekend, we'll pick the highest scoring robot (w/o coopertition) to join us - with a favoring to a robot that can deal well with tipped RC's. Why? At an early district event, we anticipate that there will be a limited number of robots that can score a lot of points. Most likely, that robot plus ours will each be able to maximize our scores. If the third robot can do anything, we'll consider it a bonus. Moreover, this would mean that that "higher scoring" bot will not be scoring against us.... At this competition, I do not anticipate the center RC's being all that important.

However, at our last district event, I anticipate teams being stronger. This will change the equation significantly. We'll only know after seeing play on the first day, but those center RC's should start to play a role, greatly increasing the value of a landfill specialist with a center RC grabber.... At our District Champs, I fully expect the equation to be changed and can see us opting for a little bit of a lesser robot with autonomous access to the center RC's... Of course, in St. Louis, each alliance will need to be able to make a strong play for the center RC's.

In other words, the higher the level of competition, the more important center RC's become (and less important the unprocessed litter)... This will change the alliance selections significantly.