2007 RachaCha Ruckus

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Kims Robot

We will see on the selection process... And Alex, if you bring a team, you can help decided that

We basically have done a straight assignment of teams in serpentine fashion (like 1, 8, 24; 2, 9, 23; etc). But we may switch it up... you never know! We liked this at Bash because teams didnt have to worry about scouting, they could just have fun, show their new drivers what to do, etc. Plus it gives teams more time for matches (we dont have to stop for selections, just for lunch). Since we try to use this event to help Rookie teams, and many teams dont have their full team to help scout, it seems more fun/fair to just do it at will or at random. Just my thoughts. We will see what the committee says!

I respectfully state that if I were a competitor at this event, I think I'd prefer the top seeded teams have the option to pick their own alliances. Because the intermixing of the alliance robots' functions is so critical to the alliance's strategy and success this year (Can you climb our ramps? How many ramps do we want in the alliance? Do we want a 2 defensive/1 offensive alliance or another configuration? etc.), I don't think random pairings would be the best choice for the elimination rounds. For example, what if numbers worked out such that 3 defensive/rampbots ended up in one alliance? I don't think any of those 3 teams would enjoy that too much. Although it would be fun to see full team defense played against an alliance, I don't think it would work for very long. You run the risk of formulating too many weird/incompatible alliances, and then the gameplay in the elims would suffer.

Just my opinion. Hopefully you guys get a ton of teams this year and you can run a standard playoff operation.