(Seemingly) Irrational alliance selection decisions?

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by BenjiSG

On Newton at Worlds in 2015, I was leading my team's (2877) scouting. Everything went well, and we had a fairly comprehensive list for both landfill and feeder station robots for our driver to pick in alliance selection if we wound up an alliance captain. Sure enough, we did captain alliance, and while our first pick went smoothly (3467, a feeder station robot), our driver got mixed up on the second pick and chose 175, also a feeder station robot when the pick list should have had us picking 3539, a landfill robot. We also had a feeder station robot, so our final alliance wound up being three feeder station robots scrambling for two feeder stations, which quickly ended any chances for us to make it out of quarter finals.

Ever since, our scouting captain has been the one to make alliance selections.

This situation is what whiteboards were made for. Been using one since the beginning of 2013 and never looked back. That way your entire scouting team can discuss and determine each pick, not just one person.