Picking alliances

[LightWaves1636]

Originally Posted by Mr. Freeman

I don't think informing the top teams of your robot's ability is a bad thing. It might sound "desperate", but if you do it right it might actually be really helpful.
At the Colorado regional there was some team (sorry, forgot the number) that made a really helpful scouting booklet of all the teams at the regional.
During the alliance selections, alliances 1-8 picked pretty quickly, they knew who they wanted to choose. But alliance 8 took a really long time to make their second choice, and I saw almost every single other alliance on the field flipping through that scouting manual like crazy while teams 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, made their decision.
I think some of the selection decisions were rushed simply because the alliances weren't aware of which teams were both A) not already picked, and B) preformed well but were ranked low enough that no one really noticed them (from what I've heard, this seems to be fairly common).
Talking to the high ranked teams could, if nothing else, give them a team to pick if their first few choices are taken by other the alliances.

I believe it was 1861, The S.H.A.R.C. team. that was so cool they did that for us, it really helped out in strategy. But yeah, it seemed at Colorado the alliance pickings were really rushed, me and the rest of Team 1636 were just sitting there waiting for someone to pick us or 1583. Luckily 555 did and we're grateful for it, very grateful(Love you guys-thanks for the buttons and the shirt). A lot of the alliances I thought could have been more thought out but the top 8 weren't given anytime to figure out what they really wanted like they did with us last year. Of course I don't know why I didn't mention this, but buddy yourselves up with a good bot that will most likely be picked up is another good plan, risky, but it may work.(1636 and 1583)

[Bill Moore]

Originally Posted by EricH

"Schmoozing" (selling yourself to anybody in the top 8) can pay off. However, bad times to do this are: a) they are swarming their robot like crazy, b) they are about to play a match, or c) when the judges or a bunch of other teams are there. Start on Friday and step it up as you get closer. Don't be too agressive about it though; that gets the "pushy salesman" reaction. (On the other hand, don't ignore the top 8. That could be suicide.)

By the way, reason d) that this team didn't get picked is: they didn't draw the attention of enough scouts. Reason e) is: alliance strategy may not have had a place for the robot type. (eg. a ringer robot when the next few picks want a ramp bot) I say, let it fly, sell yourself next time around, and hope it works. (Giveaways help too.)

Schmoozing isn't only done by teams out of the top eight seeds, there is a lot of "testing the waters" within that group as well. Teams discussing possible matchups with each other and striking deals for end game strategies.

For teams that have significant scouting, you cannot wait until the competition is over to begin talking with them. They have collected all the data, and have taken notes about the decisions made by your competition team. You need to catch them early on Saturday morning, and give them some time to focus on your robot during its matches. Many robots improve from Friday to Saturday, and some begin having more difficulties. Scouts are familiar with these trends, so give them time to re-evaluate your robot during the Saturday morning matches.

[newton418]

At Lone Star a couple teams came by our pit and talked to me, asking me to keep them in mind. I had no problem with this, but they were talking to the wrong person! As the driver and part of the pit crew, I had very little time to look at other robots, especially if they weren't allied with us, or they didn't really stand out. When our team met to make a list of potential alliance partners I was primarily there to keep things moving.
So, I don't know about other teams, but talking to our pit crew is a lost cause since we are the people on the team contributing the least to the alliance selection decisions.
However, the information flyers did come in handy on multiple occasions, especially the ones with detailed pictures, since our scouting pictures only got robots from one angle.

[Raul]

We create a ranking list on Friday night and come prepared to tweak it on Saturday morning. We use the last matches on Saturday to see if our ranking may need adjusting.

The issue with schmoozing is that all the talk in the world does not help if you cannot prove it on the field. My advice to teams is to:
1) Approach teams that you wish would consider you as a partner either after all matches are done on Friday or early on Saturday morning before your first match that day. Explain to them your strengths and ask them to watch you perform in your next match and give them your match number. This makes #2 below important:
2) Do not try to show off your abilities at the cost of causing your alliance to lose. Some rookie teams (and some veterans) do not follow or agree to do the best strategy because they want to do their own thing to show off. You must get agreement from your alliance that the role you will play (ramp, score, defense) is what is going to contribute the most to the alliance.

Raul

[hipsterjr]

Rankings are a very poor repensentation. 342 was in the mid 20's of the Palmetto Regional, but we ended up beating the #1 ranked team in the finals. We did try to sell ourselfs. We went to 1319 (Golden Flash) and showed them our relieable ablity to climb ramps on the practice field and diminstrated our arm. With Flash's ramp, and both 832 and us scoring, we had a great team that went past ranking

[EmoMike]

Just so everybody knows! Your ranking means NOTHING. we (Chuck 84) just won the Philly Regional after choosing the 35th seeded team and the 19th seeded team and we came out on top. so don't let yourself think that if a team is seeded low they suck.

[Bharat Nain]

Originally Posted by Raul

We create a ranking list on Friday night and come prepared to tweak it on Saturday morning. We use the last matches on Saturday to see if our ranking may need adjusting.

The issue with schmoozing is that all the talk in the world does not help if you cannot prove it on the field. My advice to teams is to:
1) Approach teams that you wish would consider you as a partner either after all matches are done on Friday or early on Saturday morning before your first match that day. Explain to them your strengths and ask them to watch you perform in your next match and give them your match number. This makes #2 below important:
2) Do not try to show off your abilities at the cost of causing your alliance to lose. Some rookie teams (and some veterans) do not follow or agree to do the best strategy because they want to do their own thing to show off. You must get agreement from your alliance that the role you will play (ramp, score, defense) is what is going to contribute the most to the alliance.

Raul

If I were you, I'd pay close attention to Raul's post. Selling your team is a good idea if you do it the right way. And if you try to sell your team by claiming things your robot/team cannot do, most powerhouse teams will find out through their scouting data and it will only lower your teams worth in their opinion. It is important to sell what you have done right in the past rounds so you have a prove record. Honesty is highly valued among teams who are usually in the top 8.

[ScoutingNerd175]

Originally Posted by Bharat Nain

If I were you, I'd pay close attention to Raul's post. Selling your team is a good idea if you do it the right way. And if you try to sell your team by claiming things your robot/team cannot do, most powerhouse teams will find out through their scouting data and it will only lower your teams worth in their opinion. It is important to sell what you have done right in the past rounds so you have a prove record. Honesty is highly valued among teams who are usually in the top 8.

I agree. When I was scouting captain for team 175, we did a lot of quantitative analysis. However, quantitative analysis is never enough to judge the quality of a team. A lot of the time, it came down to my (and the other scouts) impressions of a team.

It is certainly very important to be honest about what you can do. If you tried to tell me that you could score 5 ringers/match, and my data said that you could only score 2, that would lessen my opinion of your team. However, if your team could score 2 ringers/match because you were a very defensive team and had once held the highest scoring bot at a regional to only 1 ringer, that is going to make a difference to me. The numbers can tell us which robots score 4 ringers a match and which score 1 ringer a match, but it is our impressions of a team and their capabilities that help us decided whether we want to select the robot that scores 3 ringers/match or the robot that scores 3.1 ringers/match.

I agree with others in the thread that it is very important to sell yourself to the right person. Send someone who is knowledgeable about your robot and has seen most of your matches to speak with the scouting captain (or whoever is in charge of picking) about your bot. On one team, talking to the driver may be the best thing to do. On another team, the driver may not have that much input in picking, so talking to them may not help at all.

Selling yourself can definitely be effective. At Chesapeake last year, we were ranked fourth and 1629 was ranked first. From their scouting data, they knew that we had a very strong robot. However, they had not played with us in qualifying and did not know how our robots would do together. From our data, we knew that they had a strong robot and, although they didn't have a the highest scoring average, they did have a very high average. We also felt that their strengths complimented ours. So I and a member of our pit crew went to talk to their driver who was doing the picking. Although he knew that we were a high scoring robot, he was looking for a robot that could also do well defensively. We spoke with him about our defensive capabilities and our two-speed drive (which he was unaware of). This helped to move us up near the front of who they were looking to chose. They did end up choosing us (along with 1184 who we both felt was strong) and the result was a regional win.

So selling yourself can definitely drastically change the outcome of a competition just so long as it is done in the right way to the appropriate person on the other team.

[Ken Loyd]

If you want to get picked...start early. Get your robot to every practice session. Maybe it can't do everything in the beginning, but I can scout it as you work on it and it improves. I can get a "feel" for it early. Show me what you are good at. So you don't have a ramp or an arm, play defense like crazy.

Put big, readable numbers on your robot. Scouts usually get pushed to the sides or way up in the stands by the teams who want to stand when their robot is on the field (of course then no one else can see their robot.)

Sending your human player to the field doesn't do much. You might send the human player into the stands with donuts!

If you are going to prepare something ahead of time, be sure to include a photo of the robot (keep the team members out of the picture.) Keep the information short. Don't lie! Don't say you are working on something if you aren't. Something the size of an index card works best for me.

Be friendly. The team you are rude to today may not pick you tomorrow.

Ken

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Ken Loyd

...Put big, readable numbers on your robot. Scouts usually get pushed to the sides or way up in the stands by the teams who want to stand when their robot is on the field (of course then no one else can see their robot.) ...
Be friendly. The team you are rude to today may ot pick you tomorrow.

Readable is the key. Black on robot insides is NOT visible from the stands. Even sticking paper behind the numbers would help. Better yet, follow the rules on size, stroke, and contrast. Trust me, if I can't see your numbers, I can't identify you easily, and that means I have to use elimination to figure out who you are. Having two robots with this problem on the same alliance means that somebody has wrong data or doesn't get scouted at all.

Definitely be friendly. Ignoring the top 8, even if you are in the top 8, can be fatal.

[Bomberofdoom]

Originally Posted by jgannon

If other teams have good scouts, qualifying rank means nothing. Good scouts will find good teams, regardless of rank. There are plenty of stories around here of teams who finished dead last and still got picked for elims (most recently, team 4 won LA after seeding last). On the other hand, my team finished in the top 20 at both events we entered this year, and still didn't get picked. There's nothing wrong with selling yourself to other teams, particularly teams that you played well with during qualifying. Scouts do sometimes miss good teams, and it never hurts to give them a little reminder. In any case, don't beat yourself up over it. Only 24 teams get to play in elims. Sometimes you're in the 24, and sometimes you aren't.

Yep, team 2230 in Israel got a bad ranking due to loads of problems with our ranking alliances and we always lost with them(and they won with the other alliances, so they ranked up while we kept going down untill we reached the last ranking), but in the end we got picked by the #6 alliance and we reached the semi-finals which for our first year rocks!

[David55]

Originally Posted by Bomberofdoom

Yep, team 2230 in Israel got a bad ranking due to loads of problems with our ranking alliances and we always lost with them(and they won with the other alliances, so they ranked up while we kept going down untill we reached the last ranking), but in the end we got picked by the #6 alliance and we reached the semi-finals which for our first year rocks!

I have to agree with Nir!
Although team 2230 was ranked last in the seeding, they had an amazing robot. It just comes to show how much the ranking depends on luck.
You can see 2230's robot here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckTOJ...elated&search=

[Brandon Holley]

I think everyone can see that scouting is what will get you picked and not ranked...but here is a little tale from the 2004 season that proves this even more...and how "schmoozing" can help your team out:

At the 2004 Chesepeake regional, our team was doing really well. We had been doing so well after Friday that it looked like we were going to make the top 8, and we did in fact make the top 8. Come saturday morning, team 122 came over, attempting to "schmooze" us, and they had perfect timing, and perfect execution. They told us their story of why they had finished near the bottom of the rankings. They said we really are a great robot, come watch us on the practice field.

We checked our scouting notes and saw that some scouts thought this team was capable of being fantastic. We watched them on the practice field and were amazed at what they could do and how they finished near the bottom.

We all talked and finally agreed we would take this team near the bottom of the rankings as our 1st pick!! We went into the quarterfinals, and WON. We did unfortunately lose in the semifinals...but this is not where the story ends.


We went to another regional after Chesepeake that year, the inaugural Palmetto Regional. We played FANTASTICALLY here and finished number 3, and were picked by the number 2 seed. We go through the whole picking process, and now its time to pick our 3rd partner....who to choose?? Well our good friends from Chesepeake team 122 were also competing at the Palmetto Regional, and they once again finished poorly in the rankings. We convinced our partners to pick team 122 as our 3rd partner, telling them they would not be disappointed...and they were not because we won the whole regional, and we have team 122 to thank. The 3rd team, 9 times out of 10 is what wins you the regional, especially when the matches are 2 v. 2. So thanks again 122, and we hope you had a great 2004 season because I know we did.

This is just another example of how scouting, schmoozing, and most importantly a good head on your shoulders will help your team get into eliminations..even if you did not place well in qualifiers.

[Alpha 997]

If your team’s robot is a capable one, you won’t have to worry about selling yourself to the top team if you ranked low. A good team most likely would have a nice scouting system and don’t even look at the ranking sheet. We didn’t go of the ranking sheet when we picked. We had our own ranking sheet that tells us who matches us the best.

Here’s what happened at PNW. The team that ranked the top 3 wasn’t the most experience team out there. We ranked 4th and we had a nice scouting system. I don’t believe the top 3 teams did. From their pick, it seems like that they picked off the ranking only. The first ranked team picked the second ranked team and the third ranked team picked some other team in the top 8. We, as the 4th ranked team got to pick or first choice ring placer and what our data showed as the best ring placer there, 272. We were hoping the second best ring placer, 360, would not get picked and circle back to us because they were ranked so low. But they got picked a few picks ahead of our second pick. Team 272 and 360 was clearly the best ring placers at PNW, but because of the messed up “randomization” matching system, they played each other every single qualifying match. 272 ended up ranking 11th and 360 was ranked 36. Thanks to our scouting team, we were able to pick the best ones out of the crowd and win it all.

So if you have a good bot but ranked low, it might even be a good thing. Because if the top ranked teams weren’t the best ones, and mostly likely won’t have a scouting system, you would be saved to be picked by a good team that didn’t get ranked too high in the top 8 who has a nice scouting system.

[sovierr]

One point to make about Atlanta. Our team will be overworked since we have an FRC team (180) and an FVC team (3228) at the events. FVC is going to be a monster to scout. The current team list has 69 teams, but there are supposed to be some international teams that are not present on the list yet. The website says "almost 100 teams". They are not breaking us into different divisions like FRC.

Scouting (the way we scout for FRC) will not be possible, so we will just do our best. With other teams in the same situation, I will probably put together a promotional flyer for our FVC team.