What do you think

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

HUH?!

someone tried to pick one of the top 8 teams in the second round of picks?!

you cant do that - once the first round is over you cant pick from the top 8 - they already have an alliance partner.

Well Ken, some teams tried... In the second round of picks there were teams picking other allaince captains, then picking already picked teams, then picking non existent teams. Ahh yes, there was also the dispute involving 237.. Apparently, since they (ranked 6) were in the top 8 and rejected one invitation(571), they could not accept the invitation of 126(5) because they had already declined another team.

[KenWittlief]

ok - next year FIRST has to put 3 Zire PDAs in each KOPs, along with a scouting program, and a way to update all of them on the field during alliance selection from the IR beacons :^)

It would REALLY help if FIRST could display the remaining teams on the big screen, according to ranking, updated in real time during the selection process.

[BoyWithCape195]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

ok - next year FIRST has to put 3 Zire PDAs in each KOPs, along with a scouting program, and a way to update all of them on the field during alliance selection from the IR beacons :^)

It would REALLY help if FIRST could display the remaining teams on the big screen, according to ranking, updated in real time during the selection process.

I think that would be a very good idea. I think this idea should attempt to persue this for next years competition. I dont think it will be very hard for them to attempt/do. It would also help the top 8 and keep away from confusion. The PDA idea would be cool, just not to that extent, lol. (they probobly could get some really cheap ones donated or somting that you must return for the next year or ELSE pay)

[BillyGoats]

well we have a situation kind of like yours.. we where 5th or 6th after 8 of our 10 matches then the last day we did not want to break any thing before the finals so we left it up to our alliance partner weather we would win or not... we lost our last two and ended up in 13th for the regional... luckily enough teams saw how good we where and we got picked first by the first place alliance... if i was in your situation i would of been pissed off for a while becuase i knew we had a good robot and if we did not get picked. it would sucked big time.. any ways remember theres always next time or even the nationals to get em back!

[BoyWithCape195]

Originally Posted by BillyGoats

well we have a situation kind of like yours.. we where 5th or 6th after 8 of our 10 matches then the last day we did not want to break any thing before the finals so we left it up to our alliance partner weather we would win or not... we lost our last two and ended up in 13th for the regional... luckily enough teams saw how good we where and we got picked first by the first place alliance... if i was in your situation i would of been pissed off for a while becuase i knew we had a good robot and if we did not get picked. it would sucked big time.. any ways remember theres always next time or even the nationals to get em back!

(we dont have the money....only way would have been to win the regional and get payed for by FIRST)

[BillyGoats]

this was going to be team 61's last year becuase of lack of support from the school ect... but thank goodness we won the regional becuase now they want to support us...we have done one regional for 6 years now becuase of lack of money but since we won florida we then went to our sponsers and asked for some money. thank goodness for having great sponsers we were able to raise over 5,000 in less than two days... well since you can not get em this year remember next year!

[kid robusto]

what happend suck for us , but there is no changing it. i hope that next year they top seeded team can accualy figure out what is going out, they seemed to not have a clue what anyone else was doing.

[J Flex 188]

I dont believe that FIRST pays for anyone anywhere to goto nationals even after they won a competition (someone correct me if wrong please =D). The same thing happened when 188 won west michigan last year. There was only 1 or 2 weeks in between and what ended up happening was that only the drive crew, human player, 1 teacher and 1 mentor went to houston while the rest of us stayed at home. I feel for your team, but theres not much anyone can do right now, and personally I feel the system is fine the way it is. Maybe your team could try to talk it up with the other teams a bit more? Prepare flyers and handouts and distribute them just before alliance pickings? or have representatives go out and talk with the high seeded teams as well. A lot of times high seeds pick other high seeds and then the 9th, 10th, 11th seeded teams pick and some do so without pre-scouted lists because they didnt originally believe they had to. At pittsburgh something like the 12th or 13th seeded team got to pick

Originally Posted by BoyWithCape195

(we dont have the money....only way would have been to win the regional and get payed for by FIRST)

[mtaman02]

Originally Posted by [b

KenWittlief[/b]] ok - next year FIRST has to put 3 Zire PDAs in each KOPs, along with a scouting program, and a way to update all of them on the field during alliance selection from the IR beacons :^)

It would REALLY help if FIRST could display the remaining teams on the big screen, according to ranking, updated in real time during the selection process.

If I'm not mistaken they did have this in 2001 and 2002 not sure about 2003 and well pretty much non exsistant in 2004

[jamapor]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

It would REALLY help if FIRST could display the remaining teams on the big screen, according to ranking, updated in real time during the selection process.

At the Arizona regional (or BAE...i can't remember) they did have a list in the background of the top seeded teams and then on the right side they had the teams that were left. it wasn't applicable to our team because we got picked by the 2nd place team, but i'm sure it was very useful in 2nd round picking for other teams

[abeD]

I also seem to remember there being a list of the top teams and who they picked along with the remaining teams on the big screen at the Florida Regional (most clearly remember this in 2002 at KSC). But this year at FL regional I don't think they had it and yes there were also problems with teams picking teams not in the regional or allready picked teams.

[Heretic121]

i think someone metinoed about a top 8 team being picked in the second round... that was us 121... one of the other alliance captains tried to pick us after we had already picked another team... strange indeed... and it was just mass confusion... *shurg*

[ColleenShaver]

I don't know if there is anyway that this could be considered a flaw with FIRST. It is the responsibility of teams to know who would be good partners for them, and prepare themselves. As a team, we make fliers about our strengths and strategies well before any events and have them available to give out to teams. If nothing else, other teams can look and see if you really do what you say you'll do.

Teams also need to go through all the teams at the competition and rank them in terms of who they think is their best options for partners. Just because someone is ranked highly doesn't mean a lower seeded team isn't better suited as a partner, as has been mentioned several times in this thread. We consider many elements when choosing partners, including but not limited to their performance in objectives we see important, their reliability, friendliness/'good to work with', etc. As Ken said, it's about having fun so you want to pick a team you want to work with and can form a real team with.

It's part of the game, and we've all been disappointed before. Teams will prepare as much as they see fit and pick who they pick. You just have to accept that it's what they think is the best, cheer on through the finals, or spend the extra time working on your robot in the pit to make it better.

Originally Posted by jamapor

At the Arizona regional (or BAE...i can't remember) they did have a list in the background of the top seeded teams and then on the right side they had the teams that were left. it wasn't applicable to our team because we got picked by the 2nd place team, but i'm sure it was very useful in 2nd round picking for other teams

Same thing for the Pacific NW Regional.

[kevinw]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

ok - next year FIRST has to put 3 Zire PDAs in each KOPs, along with a scouting program, and a way to update all of them on the field during alliance selection from the IR beacons :^)

It would REALLY help if FIRST could display the remaining teams on the big screen, according to ranking, updated in real time during the selection process.

This was exactly the case at the Detroit regional also. When a couple of teams made it to the top 8 alliances due to intra-top 8 picking, the big screen proved helpful. They weren't quite expecting to be there or prepared with a list of teams that had been picked, etc., so they used the board to help them out. It was nice.