Value & Credibility of 4th robots on an Alliance

[ASD20]

Originally Posted by simpsonboy77

My team was the 3rd pick for the 4th Carson alliance this year. We took home a blue banner for winning the division despite our robot never set its wheels down in eliminations. The vibe of my team was that we didn't earn the banner. Rather than being ecstatic about winning, the team was wondering why we weren't picked earlier and why our alliance captain didn't sub us in. I think our major flaws were not being able to shoot from the outerworks, our limited defense crossing, and we were easy to block as a low shooter. The team was happier seeding 8th, and losing in the quarter finals at MAR champs.

Your success is all perception. You can look at it as being the 4th pick out of 4 bots on your alliance. If you look at it like this, then yes you were the worst robot on your alliance (Don't look at it like this). You can look at it as being the 28ish pick out of 75 robots in your division. If you look at it like this, then you were roughly better than 2/3 of teams at Champs. Now that is something to be proud of. You can just be proud of qualifying for Champs, something only 600 out of 3000 teams did. With that view, you performed better than roughly 80% of FRC.

Just because elims was the last thing you played, it doesn't mean your perception of your elims performance should be what you base your opinion of the entire season on. I've found myself falling into the same trap as a team that has been about 40th-50th in New England the past few years. It is really easy to be caught up in the fact that we ranked 50th out of 60 at District Champs and forget that we ranked 50th out of 180 in New England.

Yes, its okay to be disappointed that you didn't go farther or rank higher, but you should also be happy about how far you got. 4th bots are not picked out of pity, they are picked because the alliance sees value in them. They earn there spot just like every other robot.

[Whatever]

The way I look at it is that one of the big lessons of FIRST in general is to maximize and utilize the resources available to you. The best teams in FIRST have the same laws of physics as everyone else. Good teams are the ones that maximize the resources available to them.

At the beginning of the draft, each captain is given 3 chances to maximize the resources available to the alliance. The 4th robot in the winning alliance is the team that the winning alliance captain deemed as maximizing their available resources.

[efoote868]

Originally Posted by ASD20

Yes, its okay to be disappointed that you didn't go farther or rank higher, but you should also be happy about how far you got. 4th bots are not picked out of pity, they are picked because the alliance sees value in them. They earn there spot just like every other robot.

The alternative to the 4th bot is the next highest seed... this robot may or may not compliment the alliance. And I think that's where the 4th robot brings the greatest value. The alliance knows if it hits the fan, they'll have a decent replacement. And that team won't have to get up to speed on anything, they already know (or even formed!) the strategy and how to fit within the alliance on the field.