Alliance Selection 2005- Like it?

[Dave Scheck]

[quote=Billfred]I think the rule says it all--three robots.[quote]That's what I thought, just trying to get other interpretations

Of course, if there were some catastrophic failure, I guess you could always neatly bundle your robot's essential goods (battery, RC, breaker panel, LEDs, team numbers, etc.) and put them in something and call it the Flower Pot of DOOOOOOOOM!

Haha, I was thinking more of a tote from 2003

Actually I wanted to see somebody do that in an offseason comp in 2003...I can just see it now....

"And there goes team X to stack a bin and..wait...do my eyes deceive me...why yes, the bin has actually eluded team X"

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by T. Hoffman

That is a really great analogy; however, your parallel to the engineering world all assumes that your company still retains the right to CHOOSE New Little Guy Machines in the event that Amazing can't hold up its end of the bargain. Unfortunately, under the current rules, your company is at the mercy of a ranked list, and the selection of your alternate business partner is made for you by an external party. No matter how much you want to do business with New Little Guy Machines and no matter how much they want to do business with you, if they are the #2-rated company on that list - you're going to be stuck with the #1 guy no matter what he makes and how well he makes it - for all you know, he's making widgets and you need whatchamacallits! Makes perfect business sense to me!

The analogy to the real world still holds perfectly. Yup, that's right - welcome to the real world of government engineering! That is the one where decisions regarding the selection of business partners are bound by the rules of "8-A corporations," "Buy-American Clause," "Lowest Bidder selections," "Minority-owned business preferences," "Business development zone preferences," "competitive peer reviews," "justfications for non-competitive procurements," etc. etc. etc.

You know, the more and more I look at what happens with a typical FIRST team and the experiences they go through, the more and more impressed I am with FIRST and how they make it more and more like the "real world" every day (even the really wierd parts of the real world)!

-dave

[Josh Fritsch]

I have a question...I think the rule is a little vague or I just didn't read it properly. Anyway stay with me I don't want this to be too confusing

Ok...so in the elimination matches you, the original alliances will consist of 24 teams (8 alliances * 3 per alliance). And lets just say for the sake of easiness to understand the teams picked were also ranked 1-24. Ok. Say a team on alliance 1 breaks down, now do they have to choose the next available highest ranked i.e. robot ranked #25? or can they choose any one of the 8 robots that must stay "ready" to play? I just got confused about this.

[-matt-]

Originally Posted by Josh Fritsch

I have a question...I think the rule is a little vague or I just didn't read it properly. Anyway stay with me I don't want this to be too confusing

Ok...so in the elimination matches you, the original alliances will consist of 24 teams (8 alliances * 3 per alliance). And lets just say for the sake of easiness to understand the teams picked were also ranked 1-24. Ok. Say a team on alliance 1 breaks down, now do they have to choose the next available highest ranked i.e. robot ranked #25? or can they choose any one of the 8 robots that must stay "ready" to play? I just got confused about this.

I believe that you must pick the highest seeded team avalible. There is no choice in robots, except the choice to play a round with only two robots or to pick the highest seeded team not picked for elims.

[Stu Bloom]

Originally Posted by Josh Fritsch

I have a question...I think the rule is a little vague or I just didn't read it properly. Anyway stay with me I don't want this to be too confusing

Ok...so in the elimination matches you, the original alliances will consist of 24 teams (8 alliances * 3 per alliance). And lets just say for the sake of easiness to understand the teams picked were also ranked 1-24. Ok. Say a team on alliance 1 breaks down, now do they have to choose the next available highest ranked i.e. robot ranked #25? or can they choose any one of the 8 robots that must stay "ready" to play? I just got confused about this.

I'm not sure what you think is vague ...

from 8.4.1 - Alliance Selection Process

Of the remaining eligible teams, the highest seeded teams (up to eight) shall remain on standby and be ready to play. If a robot from one team in a three-team alliance becomes inoperable, at the discretion of the Alliance Captain, the highest seed of the standby teams shall join that alliance. The resulting alliance would then be composed of four teams, but only three teams will be permitted to continue with match play. The inoperable team remains part of the alliance for awards but cannot play, even if their robot is repaired.

The way I read this - the Alliance Captain determines whether or not a fourth team will join the alliance. Once that decision is made, it is the highest remaining seed that fills that position.

[OneAngryDaisy]

Now that the first weekend is over, did any of the top 8 seeds in the past regionals 'draft' a robot to replace one of their broken bots?

[OneAngryDaisy]

Also- here's an answer for championship qualifying, check out the awards page for each regional.. here's St. Louis:

Regional Winner #1 1625 NASA and Winnebago High School Winnebago,IL
Regional Winner #2 1444 Beta Sigms Psi Fraternity Alumni/Arco Construction Co./Spartan Light Metal/CRH Transportation/White Rodgers/Neff Press/Applied Ind. Tech./Trinity Products/NASA & Lutheran High South St. Louis,MO
Regional Winner #3 939 Sisseton High School Sisseton,SD
Regional Winner #4


I take this to mean that the fourth (replacement) bot is also considered a winning bot, and is therefore eligible for the championship.

[Btower]

Some thoughts on the Alliance Replacements.

At GLR we brought the two highest seed un-picked teams onto the field to be on standby (according to the rules as they were explained to me, the alliance captain must decide to bring an alternate in 2 minutes before the start of the next round. No extra time is given, so they better be on the field ready to go. I chose to have only two teams as a worst case scenario. (We used neither but I thank them for their patience). There would be no way to keep 8 on the field, not to mention the extremely low probability of using more than 2 or 3.
If an alternate is used, all four teams are equal members of the alliance. (Trophies, trips, bling, book tours, custody of the children etc.)

[Jack Jones]

I think the replacement rule is a good idea. However, I do have one serious reservation.

What would prevent an alliance from deciding to replace a robot that was less than 100% (running, but not at it's best). Or worse, from deciding that the top seed in the pool would do a better job against the upcoming alliance.

Your answer, most likely, would be; "Gracious Professionalism." But how long will it take for someone to take advantage of a loophole like that?

[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by Jack Jones

I think the replacement rule is a good idea. However, I do have one serious reservation.

What would prevent an alliance from deciding to replace a robot that was less than 100% (running, but not at it's best). Or worse, from deciding that the top seed in the pool would do a better job against the upcoming alliance.

Your answer, most likely, would be; "Gracious Professionalism." But how long will it take for someone to take advantage of a loophole like that?

We were that first-up replacement robot at PNW and sat and watched the whole finals. One team had a robot that had significant driving problems as a transmission was failing and (apparently) lost the use of its arm early in the finals and their alliance stuck with them anyways. Our team captain talked to the alliance captain who had never heard of the replacement rule. The alliance captain still stuck with his choice. I'm pretty sure than an alliance robot would have to catch fire before most captains would replace it.

[Btower]

Originally Posted by Jack Jones

I think the replacement rule is a good idea. However, I do have one serious reservation.

What would prevent an alliance from deciding to replace a robot that was less than 100% (running, but not at it's best). Or worse, from deciding that the top seed in the pool would do a better job against the upcoming alliance.

Your answer, most likely, would be; "Gracious Professionalism." But how long will it take for someone to take advantage of a loophole like that?

I think the reason the replaced team is not allowed to compete again is to discourage a "strategic" replacement. Not mention it would probably be obvious to most observers.

Ben

[EricH]

At the Sacramento regional, the three top teams after alliance selection were told "Be ready to play" or something like that. None of them were used. What might help is if FIRST allowed the lowest four teams to pack up after quarter finals and the next lowest two to do the same after semifinals. This would also make it easier on the shippers who have to take the robots away (a few at a time instead of all at once).

[Kit Gerhart]

Originally Posted by Btower

I think the reason the replaced team is not allowed to compete again is to discourage a "strategic" replacement. Not mention it would probably be obvious to most observers.

Ben

I figured the reason is to go along with the rest of the baseball analogy stuff that is part of this year's competition. If you are taken out, you can't return to the game.