Highest seeded team not picked for finals

[SwitchBlade430]

We were 11th seed after the qualifying rounds at the New Jersey regional in Trenton. I was so sure that we were going to get picked, we had a fairly good shooter and we had plenty of torque to play defense. It was a good robot, but we didn't get picked.

[billbo911]

Originally Posted by squirrel

Scouting is indeed very important. It is unfortunate that you didn't have the personpower to do it yourself, and also disappointing that FSN didn't get used. We think FSN is a good idea, but it seems like it needs enough teams to be willing to put the effort into getting it to reach "critical mass", and that didn't happen.

Jack, I couldn't agree with you more! FSN will be a great resource in the future. Adam has created a really nice piece of software, but like any database, it requires data. This data only comes from people collecting it during matches and then uploading it to the server. I hope this tool doesn't loose any momentum during the off season, only gains more!

Originally Posted by squirrel

The fact that you made #12 seed with such a small team, and with no practice, really says a lot about your team...you did great!

This is why I am so proud of our team. This was a very difficult season for us. We may have set a goal that was a little too high. (I firmly believe in teaching these kids to reach for a higher goal, otherwise they could learn to be satisfied with mediocrity.) They didn't give up and ended up with a very respectable placement standing in the end.

[Tyler Olds]

Originally Posted by AJL930

I agree with the fact that there needs to be more time for scouting. At wisconsin regional, several times during the alliance selection the teams had to pause and talk with other teammates on who to pick. There was even a time when teams seemed to pick just randomly. If it is true that teams are picking on just Rankings, they yes more time is needed to decide, at least give them 15-20 minutes.

I don't think that the amount of time we give teams (especially rookies) will really help. We just need to remind them more the importance of having a list created.
At some regionals including the Wisconsin regional, there was the STAMP program available to all teams, so if you really did not want to do your own scouting, you did not have to. This was made available to all teams and all teams were told several times about it.

FYI this is why it's important to listen to announcements from the pits and field reminding you to form a list.

[1493kd]

We were 16th or 17th at UTC, and did not get selected.. I think it is b/c we did so bad on fri and many teams may have already selected their choices.

We also had bad luck with teammates in qualifying as we had 2 games with partners missing or none at all...

[Brandon Holley]

Kind of going on the opposite note of everyone here, we were ranked 43rd of 44 teams, and were picked. I would like to extend appreciation to scouts at the Boston Regional for looking at individual performance, rather than their ranking.

Our team was getting just the worst of luck with partners. If we had a solid looking team, one of the good members would end up flipping, or turning off in some freak accident, but our team was consistently scoring 25+ points a match, and that got us noticed.

[Yipster]

We were 12th, hoping to get picked. But we were disappointed.

Due to the rules of FIRST, we were to be on stand by just in case a team went down. I didn't think it would happen, but one of the robot chain or transmission broke down and we were now allianced with the 2 top seeded teams. But....we lost to the cheesypoofs

[kborer22]

i know on my former team(MORT 11) and current(125 NUtrons) we try to concentrate on the robot as an individual. Yes there is that factor if they can/do work well with your alliance but in the end you want the best robot. At GSR we should have been ranked 19th but due to a scoring glitch we ended up in 30th and didn't get picked, granted we were not best but we had the best range(about 35ft) and could play defense. Then come Boston we had to face the #1 seed think pink 233 in 2 straight matches, in the first we played strong d and pushed them across the field. The second match they kept away from us to an extent. After the match they complimented us on playing great defense. We had could not catch a break with our alliances and were 1-8-1 and in 43rd out of 44. We ended up getting picked by the #2 seed, but(121 and 233) the first alliance was going to pick us if they #2 had not. This shows that the more veteran teams are more open to picking a robot with a lower rank if they have properly scouted. It seems that most rooks and younger teams in general have not yet realized the value of a good scouting team

[Lea103]

103 was ranked 32 at the end of friday (due to technical problems that were resolved and the robot now runs smoothly) and 22 at the time of alliance selections. we were second pick of the afternoon, team 293 recognized our potential when everything was working right (they also saw us at NJ). in our case, the ranking didnt affect us because 293 scouted and saw a team that would work well with them.

[Scott358]

While a story from last, it's relevant to the topic, so I thought I'd share....

In 2005, Team 358 (who was a member of the winning alliance at the Long Island Regional, won Chairmans at the Long Island Regional, and was a member of a finalist alliance at the Philly Regional) seeded 14th in our division at Nationals, and did not get picked. Obviously this is not what it's all about, but it sure hurt at the time.

At this point, we've turned the hurt into the motivation to take our destiny into our own hands. So far we've seeded 5th at UTC (and made it to the finals) and seeded 1 on Long Island (and won). We hope to control our own destiny in Atlanta.

In the end, it's a great lesson that if you want to go to the dance, don't sit by the phone and wait, do what it takes to be in the position of doing the asking (which in this case meant working even harder than in the past)!!!

[nuggetsyl]

Originally Posted by T. Hoffman

We were 16th out of 63 at New Jersey and weren't picked. We were 2-3 heading into Saturday before winning our last three matches.

There isn't a lot of time to modify your pick lists following the close of matches on Saturday, so I think it's tough for scout teams to integrate their observations of Saturday's events into the pick lists they formulated the night before.

you guys were 4 th on our picking list we can not understand why you were not chosen. it was robo wizards ,1297,1403,48

shaun