Alliance Captain versus last pick in Alliance Selection

[Greg Needel]

My take on the situation is very personal since we have recently gone though similar situations over the past couple seasons. The most notable was winning the championship with 254, 469, and 74 in 2014.


My team (and I) would not have wanted to change anything about our championship run. It was fantastic to play with (and win) with such good partners against some of the other best robots in the world. In 2014 my team was ecstatic to win the championship, but we are also realistic about how fortunate we were. We are also realistic to understand that there were probably 4-5 other teams in the division that could have filled the same role we did on the alliance.

All that being said, one of the things that is continuing to drive us to try and get better is the want to win as the alliance capt or first pick. We know we won't make it there right away but we would like to improve each year. While we didn't have the blue banner season we did last year, being picked in the first round at the championship (even though we lost in the quarter finals) to us was a personal improvement.

For this next year we hope to keep climbing the ladder. If we ended up being the 2nd pick on an alliance (24th or otherwise) and ended up winning again we would celebrate the victory, but still strive for more.



This next part is from me personally (not specifically my team)

The alternative perspective for what it's worth is that I would rather be a low alliance captain than the 4th robot on a winning alliance who didn't play. While it is great to be selected and be part of the alliance I don't think I could ever truly celebrate a championship win without our robot touching the field. I don't want to take anything away from any team who has won or will win (either a division or a championship) as the 4th robot, but for me I would rather play 2 matches on the field and loose than leave my robot on it's cart and win.