[FTC]: The current state of The Yellow Alliance and its future role in FTC

[mozrila]

Original Post Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/FTC/comment...iance_and_its/


To all the dedicated students and involved mentors that this may concern,

For those of you who were around for the 2013-2014 season David Dellsperger (/u/dirtydave0221) had worked on a fork of FRC’s very popular The Blue Alliance that was aptly named The Yellow Alliance.

For the sake of brevity, the site ceased being updated for the seasons following for a number of reasons which you can read here.

The Yellow Alliance was a fantastic tool that brought scouting for FTC into the 21st century. It allowed for teams to ease themselves into competition more easily by knowing what was coming, and added a new dimension of strategy to the game. And now we are trying to bring that tool back.

In order to do so we must close the gap between the community and FIRST HQ in New Hampshire. So how do we do this. David and I have put together a series of steps that we would recommend you take in making The Yellow Alliance into a reality this coming season.

1. Send an email to FIRST HQ. We have written up a template email at the bottom of your post. We recommend you follow the structure of the email we wrote so that we can attempt to limit and hostilities toward FIRST.
2. FIRST runs on social media. Use the hashtag #BringBackTheYellowAlliance and post to any of the many FTC related groups that we have linked at the bottom of this post.
3. Speak to your affiliate partners! They are the main contact between you and FIRST HQ and they want what is best for the community just as much as you! Just remember to be both gracious and professional.

By doing just these three things we can see a difference being made in FTC. We highly encourage you to contribute and discuss the issues below in the comment section of this post.

Graciously and Professionally,

Ben Weis aka /u/mozrila
and
David Dellsperger aka /u/dirtydave0221

Resources

Email Template:

TO: ftcteams@usfirst.org
CC: theyellowalliance@gmail.com
Subject: Please help bring back The Yellow Alliance!

BODY:
To whom it may concern,

My name is [name] and I am currently a [student|coach|mentor] on team [team number]. I have noticed that FRC has a variety of tools at their disposal that FTC does not. The Yellow Alliance was an amazing tool that really made a difference in our season back in 2013. We want to see FTC excel in the future but I believe that starts with better communication between FTC and its community. You can see the community's opinion on the whole situation here: http://redd.it/3eirmw

I hope that you take the time to read this and will take my opinion into account when working with the community.

Thank you for everything that you do for FIRST and its community.

Graciously and Professionally,

[Name]
[Team]
[Other contact details]

*Example Tweet*

SAVE @YELLOWALLIANCE! We want better scouting in FTC! http://redd.it/3eirmw @FTCTEAMS #OMGFTC #BringBackTheYellowAlliance

Official FTC Facebook Group
Official FTC Twitter
Official FTC Facebook Page

Notes: We are also looking for talented developers and graphic designers to help contribute to this project. We request coaches and mentors more than students as they have a robot to build!