Pit Politics

[Rich Kressly]

"Pit Politics" or "Knowing People"?
Each team impliments it's own "system" in the end

Proximity of pit location helps at times and it's safe to say that if teams are close in team number, then they came into FIRST about the same time and are more likely to know one another.

Scouting, for us at 103, and for many, is paramount. As a few people alluded to earlier, scouting includes knowing people as well as knowing robots. It always astounds me to see huge scouting efforts going on that include little or no information about people. The robot design and capabilities are huge (who wouldn't love a chance to drive Wildstang 2003, etc.), but the overall performance comes down to those programming, maintaining and controlling the robot as well as the demeanor of the field coaches, drivers, and human players.

This is a competition and some perform better than others under pressure. Some carry more experience to the driver station than others. Some strategize in more knowledgable and collaborative ways than others. No robot, no matter how awesome, has ever won a match by itself. In this sense, what some consider to be "pit politics" others would call "knowing people" as a part of scouting and/or past experience.