Alliance Request

[EricH]

Originally Posted by 3072Cap

This is what I made for our team for our 2nd district event. We had a scout go around and hand these out, and handed them to anyone who came by scouting us. Technically, this isn't helping you get picked, but it's better than nothing.

Actually...

That's just about one of the best ways to advertise yourself there is. A small sheet/card with what you can do or have done, all verifiable.

[Brian Maher]

Originally Posted by 3072Cap

This is what I made for our team for our 2nd district event. We had a scout go around and hand these out, and handed them to anyone who came by scouting us. Technically, this isn't helping you get picked, but it's better than nothing.

I like this a lot. It's concise, verifiable, and there's no fluff to sift through, just facts.

[Banderoonies]

Originally Posted by Aura_

Thanks, but when we get constant horrible match ups how are we suppose to advertise ourselves any better?

Let your performance speak. Good scouting will find you regardless of wins/losses on the field

[ATannahill]

Originally Posted by 3072Cap

This is what I made for our team for our 2nd district event. We had a scout go around and hand these out, and handed them to anyone who came by scouting us. Technically, this isn't helping you get picked, but it's better than nothing.

I have two suggestions:

1) move Cheval de Frise and Ramparts to the bottom of Teleop so it is easy to see which items are left off of Auto. I know this will break up the categories, if you are a stickler on that you can put blank spaces in the Auto list that correspond to where they are on the Teleop list.
2) either remove or rebrand on 8th seed captain. The interpicking among the top 12 doesn't tell me anything about your capabilities. Ideally you would put "Used strategy to captain an alliance through ___finals" but since putting quarter in that blank doesn't say much about your strategy abilities, it might be better to say "preformed consistently through all previous playoff matches" since that will convey you are able to handle the turn around time of quarter finals and not break on the field.
3) (I know I said two, but I saw this after posting) Change Blacksburg Stats to Blacksburg ranking stats. I first thought you crossed 605 defenses. I would also rearrange so that they are in the order of the ranking sort.

I know your 2nd event is over but I wanted to post this for other people that might see it and can keep it in mind for the future.

[evanperryg]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

Your best "advertisement" is to have a drive team that is courteous, listens and communicates well, doesn't have an abusive drive coach and is well organized.

I'm going to get this on a gigantic sign and hang it in the pit at champs. If you wan to get picked, be nice! Be friendly! Show that you're competent! Make sure your drive team is closely connected with scouting, so that you can develop well-founded strategies.

Originally Posted by Banderoonies

Good scouting will find you regardless of wins/losses on the field

Sadly, this isn't always the case. I've seen the 7th highest scoring team at an event go unpicked while teams who scored ~25 points per match got first picked by low seed captains who desperately need all the scoring power they can get. Mistakes happen, and good teams sometimes get forgotten. I suppose I was a little harsh with my first post. Talking to teams is okay to get your name out there, but don't try to get yourself on a picklist, because you'll probably just get taken off whatever list you were on. Talk about what you do and why you'd work well on an alliance, but don't haggle.

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by Banderoonies

Let your performance speak. Good scouting will find you regardless of wins/losses on the field

Originally Posted by evanperryg

Sadly, this isn't always the case. I've seen the 7th highest scoring team at an event go unpicked while teams who scored ~25 points per match got first picked by low seed captains who desperately need all the scoring power they can get.

I think all this shows is that clearly the lower seeded captains didn't have great scouting. There's not much you can do on your end should this be the case.

[JamesBrown]

I agree with many of the other people here that there is not a ton of value in trying to sell yourself to other teams outside of field performance.

There are two times where I would recommend talking to the top seeded teams, but I would recommend doing it first thing Saturday morning.

1.) You had an issue with your robot that caused you to look worse than you are, and you have since resolved that issue so your performance should be significantly better going forward. Example, 1086 had issues with their catapult at the Central VA event. The first day they were performing significantly below their capability. On Saturday morning their drive coach approached us (we were seeded 1st) and told us what the problem was, how they fixed it, and asked us to watch them and give them a chance to demonstrate that they were working to potential. They showed in their Saturday matches that they were working, we picked them, and they averaged 5+ high goals per match on their way to an event win.

2.) You have a niche capability that you have not demonstrated during qualifying that you believe their alliance will need for eliminations. For example, last year at the VA regional, we were capable of stacking totes and capping other peoples stacks, as well as accessing the recycle containers in the middle. Due to our seeding, and alliance partners on Saturday, we continued to almost exclusively build and cap stacks by our selves. Never demonstrating our ability to get the recycle bins from the landfill, and cap other 4+ stacks. The top alliances needed someone with this ability, and although we had it, we never demonstrated it so they didn't know. 1610 on the other hand made it a point to demonstrate this on Saturday morning, and were selected by the alliance that went on to win.

The key in both of these situations is the ability to demonstrate the abilities. Talk is cheap, which is why I have never put much value in pit scouting. When we seed high, we trust our scouts, they will identify if you are performing well, and your partners have not. However if you think there is a reason why your performance to a point was worse than your performance will be going forward, then it is fair and valuable to explain that to teams, and demonstrate it.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by CalTran

I think all this shows is that clearly the lower seeded captains didn't have great scouting. There's not much you can do on your end should this be the case.

Sadly this is true. After an experience few years ago watching a 2nd year team fumble through it's first experience as an alliance captain, I now go around and check with the newer teams that might be alliance captains. At SVR I informed one team on Sat morning that they might be a captain and they were shocked. Fortunately they had a mentor team they could get scouting data from (and had a pretty good alliance.) I'll work with those teams to help them develop a pick list if they're unprepared.

So my suggestion is that if you're just trying to get onto an alliance (which is an accomplishment in itself), you might approach those younger teams about sharing your scouting data if you think that you might be a first pick for them (or a 2nd pick of the 8th or 7th alliance).

To be honest you're not going to influence the draft lists for the first 2 to 5 captains by talking to them. They'll rely on their own info sources.

[Boltman]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

Sadly this is true. After an experience few years ago watching a 2nd year team fumble through it's first experience as an alliance captain, I now go around and check with the newer teams that might be alliance captains. At SVR I informed one team on Sat morning that they might be a captain and they were shocked. Fortunately they had a mentor team they could get scouting data from (and had a pretty good alliance.) I'll work with those teams to help them develop a pick list if they're unprepared.

So my suggestion is that if you're just trying to get onto an alliance (which is an accomplishment in itself), you might approach those younger teams about sharing your scouting data if you think that you might be a first pick for them (or a 2nd pick of the 8th or 7th alliance).

To be honest you're not going to influence the draft lists for the first 2 to 5 captains by talking to them. They'll rely on their own info sources.

"you're not going to influence the draft lists for the first 2 to 5 captains by talking to them"

Actually that is not entirely true... we were Captain #2 and had a team approach us morning of day 2 (of course we had our first pick locked in) but they were pinning for our second pick. They reminded me of how we played well together put up over 100 and the fact they raised from mid-30's to high teens with an explanation. They were not on my top 20 list at all but that conversation , a good explanation and a trip to meet the team put them back on it. Plus the belief I felt in the kid who approached us.

When it came time to pick they were already selected but they would have been our pick had they not been selected (I told them they likely would be as high teen ) meanwhile both of us on our alliance already agreed to pick them based on their second day performance and after discussing with our partner. So I would not say blanket captains 1-5 are so locked in they won't listen. We did and we have a fine scouting department with a deep enough list, never hurts to get more details we may have missed. Sometimes even good scouts can miss relevant info....and picking past 20 I can see where a team may be able to talk their way in to be the selection in the 20-24 range.

I know our pick list in CVR had about eight solid picks, the rest were not as solid and the ones towards the end "needed work" so the ones at the end of my our list were close to those not on it. That is where I believe tail end selections can work their way in onto pick lists sometimes especially if they have solid reasons.

[pfreivald]

This year at FLR, after three rocky starts (new camera causing glitching right out of auto, and new gearing on the drivetrain due to chewed-up gear boxes the previous week), we played seven of the best games we've ever played in the history of our team in terms of individual robot performance...

And were 2-8, ranked 44th out of 48 teams. Without any kind of off-field advertising I had no doubt that we were going to be picked, and when the time came we were the 8th overall pick.

If you're not in the top eight (or maybe ten), rank doesn't matter. Do your best on the field and trust the scouts to notice. (And when it comes down to it, I'd rather fly under the radar of teams with bad scouts, and get picked by teams with good scouts, because good scouting usually correlates to high performance.)

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by Boltman

"you're not going to influence the draft lists for the first 2 to 5 captains by talking to them"

Actually that is not entirely true... we were Captain #2 and had a team approach us morning of day 2 (of course we had our first pick locked in) but they were pinning for our second pick. They reminded me of how we played well together put up over 100 and the fact they raised from mid-30's to high teens with an explanation. They were not on my top 20 list at all but that conversation , a good explanation and a trip to meet the team put them back on it. Plus the belief I felt in the kid who approached us.

Yes, that illustrates a good exception, but they had very specific info to convey about their lack of performance. And we do get requests for whether we are looking for particular traits and we'll let them know what they might do in the next match (which surprisingly almost never happens.) That can influence our choices, but those bots are probably already on our list.