Highest Seed not Chosen for Finals

[Ianworld]

Seeding while it is one factor to look at when considering the quality of a team and their robot it defenitly isn't the most important. My team relies on our extensive team of scouts to choose the best and most capable robot.

In my opinion one of the most fun aspects of FIRST is diplomacy and getting your team recognized even though you may not have that great a ranking. While it defenitly isn't as important at some of the smaller regionals, at the larger regionals and the nations where often 80+ teams are present it is very important to publicize your team. No matter how many scouts a team has its hard to really keep every robot in your mind.

I remember back in 2003 my team was probably too good at publicizing itself. Our robot while capable, barely ran. After every match we had to rebuild the drivetrain, its autonomous was shaky, it only worked half the time(although it was effective when it did work). Despite all these problems we managed to get chosen first round by the seventh seed. We defenitly didn't deserve that position and probably hurt our alliance because they weren't allowed to choose another team that was more capable than us. That was ages ago, things havent' always gone that well.