Alliance Request

[Edxu]

Almost everything in this thread is extremely valuable information, and I would highly recommend reading through it and taking in the main points.

I'll just put in a few of my opinions:
1: Try and talk to teams a few hours before Alliance Selection, or even the Friday afternoon if you can. Many powerhouse teams hold Strategy/Pick list meetings on the Friday night, and reminding them about your team is a great way to spark discussion about your team during that meeting.

2: Approach high-seeding teams. Questions that you'll mainly want to ask them run along the lines of "What are you looking for in a second pick alliance partner?". Another great way to communicate teams is to ask them if they want to see anything performance-wise out of your robot in matches. If they are looking for anything in particular, try and exhibit it on the practice field, inviting them to watch, or plan to fulfill that role for your next quals match to demonstrate. People can talk about their capabilities all they want, but claims mean nothing unless they hold up on field in real matches.

We've talked to teams before at competition, and taking 2014 as an example, some of the higher seeds that we talked asked us to demonstrate our ability to play position 3(first assist and shot defender), and for the next few matches, we played matches focusing on displaying our ability in that role. While it didn't change our end result, I believe that it put to rest the question of whether or not we were able to play that role, and might have moved us up a few spots on that pick list.

3: Form relationships. We have the resources to assign an "expert scout" to every team at a regional, but if you don't quite have that much manpower, you'll want to try and find a contact for each of the powerhouse teams that you can comfortably talk to. Not a business relationship, but legitimately find someone to become friends with. In those crucial Friday night meetings, teams who are friendly to work with and cooperative will end up much higher on teams that are not on pick lists.

4: Try and be honest. It's hard to tell potential captains that you're having issues, but they'll hold you in higher regard if you just tell them what's wrong. They may even offer to help fix it if they can! In 2015 at CMP, we had to remove a motor in our intake rollers to dedicate ourselves to our 4-bin grab, but it meant that we would be of little use to our alliance partners. By telling our alliance partners this, we were able to modify our strategy so that we could minimize the effect of our problem, and all involved parties ended up more satisfied.

[NShep98]

My input on this is to say at least something to any top seeded alliance you think you can work well with. Do this even if you know they have noticed you before, because the last thing I wanted to hear playing as a backup team was that the scouting team of the alliance we ended up with forgot to tell their rep to pick us in the first place .

It also can't help to suggest teams or types of teams you think will complement both you and the team you are lobbying to.