Alliance partner stories

[Joe G.]

I was wondering if you guys have any stories of helpful or just plain unhelpful alliance partners.

My two best ones; both of which come from this year's Savage Soccer tournament (not FVC, but very similar)

Good partner: In autonomous, our robot failed to detect a white line on the playing field and drove into the wall. Because the robot was supposed to be climbing stairs by this point in autonomous, it drove right over the 2.5 inch wall, and was hanging there by one wheel at the end of autonomous. Our partners then proceded to lift us back into play before doing anything else!

Unfortunate partner: Our partner's defensive robot deployed its blocking system, and drove past our scoring holes (the basic idea of the challenge was to put balls in holes in a large, beanbag style wall.) At this point, their incorrectly installed radio crystal fell out, blocking our entirely offensive robot from scoring for the entire match.

[AdamHeard]

Sure there are moments when partners screw up, but do they do it on purpose? Even the greatest of teams, your team and mine included, have made stupid mistakes and lost matches for partners. It's not fair to simply say they were bad and nothing is your fault unless they are intentionally losing the match.

[Ian Curtis]

I would post a list of all the teams that made my experience as coach an amazing one last year, but CD would probably run out of storage space.

[cgredalertcc]

you can't really have good or bad partners. I would more refer to good or bad matches. Anyone who has seen a first competition can tell you that robots change from match to match. There are very few teams that build a robot that does the EXACT same thing every time. So inherintly there are times when you just want to slink away from the driver's station and curl up in a dark corner (even if you are te number one seeded team). You know that saying "stuff" happens. That totally applies to first.

[Joe G.]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

Sure there are moments when partners screw up, but do they do it on purpose? Even the greatest of teams, your team and mine included, have made stupid mistakes and lost matches for partners. It's not fair to simply say they were bad and nothing is your fault unless they are intentionally losing the match.

I relize this, I'm not saying that it's their fault. I'm just saying that looking back, some of these stories are kind of funny, and I'm sure many people would like to hear the better ones

[cgredalertcc]

Originally Posted by rocketperson44

I relize this, I'm not saying that it's their fault. I'm just saying that looking back, some of these stories are kind of funny, and I'm sure many people would like to hear the better ones

would you want someone laughing about when you totally screwed up? Just thought that should be put out there.

[Joe G.]

Originally Posted by cgredalertcc

would you want someone laughing about when you totally screwed up? Just thought that should be put out there.

Once again, that's not what I meant. I'm not saying put things up in the spirit of "boy, those guys blew it." I'm saying put things up that both you and the team involved can look back upon humerously, even though they may not have been funny at the time. Also, posts of extremely helpful alliance partners like the first one I described are encouraged.

[Nuttyman54]

One of the most valiant alliance partner efforts I've seen was in our first match of SVR 2006, playing with 1868 and 973. The entire left side of our drivtrain was out of comission, so the plan was that we would start in the far position, wiggle our way back between the ramp and the wall to block any low goal attempts. At 25 seconds left to the end of the match we would drive full forward, swinging around 180 degrees to face the ramp and then have one of our partners push us up. Although they did not manage to push us up, the teamwork executed was excellent, and a great help to a crippled alliance partner. We won the match 40 to 19.

[AndyB]

we had plenty of teams last year attempting to get us un-stuck from the corner ramps last year, it seemed to be a bit of a problem. Once actully, a team helped us get unstuck, then they accidentally hit us once more and got us stuck again lol. O well, it was worth a laugh.

I can't think of many bad partners. Every team has a personality, you just have work them. Everyone runs accross the drive team that has to do it "their way" or an occassional team that just isnt able to cooperate perfectly, but in the end, 99% of the teams out there do nothing but make FIRST a better expierience.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Originally Posted by cgredalertcc

you can't really have good or bad partners.

Sure you can. Every robot is different. Every drive team is different. Some are good, some are bad. Why do you think teams like 71, 254, and 25 go out and win every year? It's because they're good!

[Ericgehrken]

If you're on an alliance with two "sitting duck" robots then your robot should be self-sufficient enough so that it could pretty much win the match single- handedly with little offensive help pending the fellow alliance members do not attain any penalties.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

Sure you can. Every robot is different. Every drive team is different. Some are good, some are bad. Why do you think teams like 71, 254, and 25 go out and win every year? It's because they're good!

Not meaning to be negative, but even those teams have made mistakes. Don't misinterpret me, they are great teams and I look up to all of them (Look at the teaser I just posted for some 60/254 inspiration), but I'm sure they have had some mistakes in matches or broken parts that lost a match for their partners. Bottom line is, even the greatest teams make mistakes every once in a while.

So, unless they try to lose it, there isn't really a bad alliance partner.

I'm sure 71's 2002 alliance wasn't that upset when the broke the wheel.

Or, in 2005 on Galileo (?) we lost a match with team 25 and they had been stuck in a tetra (we eventually nudged them free, but it took a while) and I admit i was upset. For some scoring miscalculation they replayed it and team 25 played awesome and we won it. In hindsight I shouldn't have been upset at them at all.