FAHA: CMP Alliance Disappointment

[Bharat Nain]

It is really disappointing to seed in the top 8 at the championships, pick a decent team and then not be able to work with them because they do not want to. It is a competitive game and being picked by not-so competitive team is never an easy feeling. However, I feel quite disappointed in the fact that a veteran team did not have the fight in them to do the best with their alliance. This story truly saddens me and I feel GP was not in effect. Anyway, here it goes.
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We are a team who has been in FIRST for few years. We have done extremely well the first couple of years but we are from an area of the country that doesn't see many powerhouse teams.

My issue was that we were a team that, through the luck of the draw, was an alliance captain at CMP. We knew we were lucky but we did play the draw we were given.

To make a long story short, the kids were pumped to be able to pick a great team to finally play with and we did pick a partner that has a championship under their belt.

After the alliance picking we went over to their pit and we got basically... nothing. It was so obvious that they were disappointed to be playing with us that I got the students out of there as quickly as I could. We set up an alliance meeting and set up a strategy and went out to play.

We went through the motions on the field and got beat by a great alliance. It was an experience we will never forget.

I am just wondering if these kinds of teams stop to think or even understand what their attitude can do to a young team.

We came to CMP (our second year there) not with the idea that we were the best team or the best robot but that we were solid and we could really help a team out. The kids also came out seeing all of these great teams and wanting to emulate them both on the field and off.....

We talked about it as a team and everyone vowed that if WE ever become a team that others look up to... that we will NEVER do this to a team. We will be enthusiastic with any team that chooses us ... no matter who they are.

FIRST is an incredible place and we had a great time. We made lots of new friends and learned a huge amount. We will be back. I just wonder about this... we learned a valuable lesson from this team... so I guess I should thank them for that....

I debated whether I should bring this up on CD but after three days pondering it I felt that this was the appropriate place. I also did not want to embarrass the team that we were with. If I posted normally it would be pretty obvious who we were talking about. I don't want that.

thank you for letting me bring it up here ....

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[Francis-134]

While I can understand your frustration, I can also understand the "actions" of the other team. From the way you are describing it, it seems that your team is not as competitive as other teams on your field, while your alliance partner was a competitive team. Not knowing anything about either team (funny thing about being anonymous), I would guess your team went into the event with the intentions of doing as well as you can, while the other team probably had a good chance of doing even better (i.e. field finalist, winner).

In this case, I think the other team has a right to FEEL dissapointed. Going into a competition with good chances of doing well, only to be invited to an alliance that is significantly weaker than others in the division can be quite the downer. I can tell you from personal experience that being drafted into an alliance with little to no chance of sucess is very disheartening. In 2006, team 40 was selected by 1519, the 8th seed. While we had a good alliance that could have probably rocked most regionals, going against 111 and their crew in the first round was basicaly certian death. We lost in two matches handily.

We were honnored to be picked in the first round of nationals, a certian indication at the quality of our robot, but we were dissapointed that we were not chosen by a higher quality alliance later in the selection and allowed to show our tallents on a more competitive scale.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that while you may be saddened that another team was dissapointed, try looking at it from their persepective, and remember that we are talking about PEOPLE, not robots.

[Chris Fultz]

wow, tough situation.

First, it is disappointing that a team would act outwardly like that, even if they were disappointed with their 'draw'. That said, emotions run high in Atlanta and sometimes teams react quickly in a way that they would not react after a little while. Maybe someone on the team will notice this thread and respond privately.

One 'strategy' for you to consider, in the future, is to talk with your potential picks before alliance selections. Be sure their robots are working well, be sure they would go along with your strategy, and ask point blank - if we draft you , will you say yes and do you want to be aligned with us.

Make your decisions based on these discussions with some of your top pick teams. Remember, as alliance captain you make the calls on strategy and play - you need 2 teams that will go along with that. Those two teams might not be the teams with the 'best performing' robots. Sometimes teams pick alliance partners because they know they can work well together from past experience, even though another team may be higher on the mathematically based scouting sheet.

We have been in alliances that, in hindsight, might have been better if we had talked ahead of time and other selections had been made. This is not meant to imply one team might be 'above' playing with another, but sometimes teams just don't mesh together. Differences in philosophy, competitiveness, agressiveness, strategy can make what looks like a good alliance bad.