Ungracious professionalism at internationals?

[nicholsjj]

One thought that hasn't been said in these threads is that 1538 made an extremely risky pick with some very high level teams still on the board. 180(last years champion), 1985, and 2439 were all there. These three teams had all been major players in a regional championship and they were all working at full force. The fact that 1538 would pick a broken 217 bot over these three teams probably cost them a major shot at Einstein because as Connor has said 217 did rebreak during eliminations. The fact of the matter is that 217 told everyone that they had a major problem and the cows took a chance on it and it cost them. Does anyone from either 1538 and 1986 want to explain the thought process EDIT: (after rereading please know that this question didn't mean to sound this acusing: I just want to learn how elite level teams go through a tough decision like this) that went into the pick and if you also considered bringing 2439 in as a backup during finals? I think that would ease the minds of many people. I also think there was no "backroom" field playing going on I actually apuald 217 for being honest with the top 15 instead of telling teams "we are 100%" like most teams would do going into alliance selections. I truly believe that they didn't know if they could get their problems fixed.

[DampRobot]

While this is an important issue to discuss, accusing others of "Ungracious professionalism" is both cliché and rather inflammatory. Perhaps I shouldn't be the one to throw stones, as I've put my own foot in my mouth a large number of times, but while you have an important point to raise, I don't think that was to way to do it. GP is thrown around a lot now, usually in the context of "I'm more GP then you."

I agree that the situation seems a little fishy at first glance, but I'd be inclined to believe the respected mentors who gave their first hand accounts of their experiences.

[connor.worley]

They demonstrated some great defense and prevented a climber from reaching their pyramid in the quals. Combine that with FCS ability, and we thought that we would potentially be able to take on 1114, who we expected we would face if we won our division. We thought that between ourselves and 1986, we had a large enough lead in offensive strength over the rest of the bracket to pick up any slack in scoring if the FCS wasn't working 100%. We were proved wrong.

Edit: See also Jon's post.

[HayWire1569]

In response, my team is not at all bitter about this, in fact we're extremely ecstatic we made it to championships, let alone being an alliance captain. That was an amazing experience!!! We just found it suspicious when we were told try fell from the pyramid, and we hadn't seen tem climb, and were then picked by the #1 alliance. We are not making any accusations or trying to ruin the reputation of a team, just looking for a few answers.

Seriously though, championships was an incredible experience, thank you all so much!!!

[Jon Jack]

Paul told us that they were broke several times over the course of Saturday morning. In their last match Saturday morning they did look broke. They didn't make a single shot during the match, including auto and they were barely driving. If I remember correctly, they never moved more than 1-2 feet from the pyramid. Clearly, something was wrong. After the match we discussed taking 217 off of our pick list. We had some back and fourth as to where 217 should be on our pick list. In the end they ended up 6th on our list of second round picks. However, the 5 teams ahead of them were taken in the first or second round.

In the end, we rolled the dice with 217 with the knowledge that they were broke. It was a high risk, high reward pick on our part. We would either get them in some state of repair and get a great pick or fail to and struggle along during the elimination tournament. I'm not going to get into numbers and specifics as it's late and irrelevant to this thread. However, we felt that 217 could play a specific role between us and 1986. Another thing we took into account was Paul's coaching ability, lets face it - there's something to be said for 2 state championships, 6 Einstein appearances, 2 world championships, 1 championship finalist and countless regional wins. Some people have a knack for winning, Paul is one of them. With this in mind, we rolled the dice and made the pick.

After alliance selections, I went straight to 217's pit and had a colorful conversation with Paul about how they were broke and how dumb we were for picking them. I told him to get his pit crew to their pit so we could figure out what needed to be fixed and fix it. I also brought in kids from our pit crew to help assist in repairs. It was an all hands on deck situation. Some may say this was a dumb move on our part, but we looked at who the back up robot (2439) would be and felt comfortable in being able to work well with them in the event that we were unable to repair 217. Having 2439 as the backup robot was an insurance policy that eased our mind about picking 217.

Throughout the elims 217 was plagued with issues. In some matches, they didn't shoot everything in auto, in some matches they didn't shoot anything in auto. In some matches their full court never worked consistently. In fact, we even had to call a timeout between our two semi-final matches to allow us more time to repair some electrical issues they were having.

I hope this helps clarify things,
Jon

[HayWire1569]

Again, I would like to say we're not making accusations, we just wanted answers. I personally have known the Holy Cows since my freshman year when we meant up at the first ever Utah Regional. I have talked with them frequently since then, and have been friends with many team members as well. Team Titanium, 1986, is my all time favorite FRC team, ask any member of our team and they'll tell you how I won't ever shut up about how incredible they are to watch. 217 has been amazing to watch throughout the years as well, but until championships I had no personal experience with them, however talking with their drivers and coach, they were and are an extremely nice team to work with.

That being said, I know I personally am satisfied, as is the rest of the team, with the answers that have been provided. We meant no disrespect toward any of these three incredible teams. Thank you for your answers and explanations everyone, and congratulations to The Holy Cows for their Chairman's win!!!

[Akash Rastogi]

Holy cow, did we just resolve something on CD with a sense of civility? Thanks mods for letting this one play out.

[Ryan Dognaux]

Originally Posted by Jon Jack

Having 2439 as the backup robot was an insurance policy that eased our mind about picking 217.

Was there a reason you elected to keep 217 in instead of swapping for 2439 once 217's issues began to arise again?

From a data / scouting performance standpoint, I didn't think 217 was a good pick. I've seen this happen in years past as well, i.e. 'Team 1234 has been here before and knows how to win.' I've never drafted using that logic and I guess I just don't understand it. I'd like to hear more on how that thinking has influenced other team's draft picks at other events, or at this year's Championships.

[chantal68]

I appreciate this from the perspective of a learning scouter. Our team just completed our 7th season and it's only been in the last two that we've truly begun any real scouting effort, which is how long I've been involved. It's my personal favorite hat to wear and I want to learn all I can. So thank you for sharing the thought process. I'm finding it absolutely amazing how many different ways of thinking and how many different alliance-building strategies there can be.

Originally Posted by Jon Jack

Paul told us that they were broke several times over the course of Saturday morning. In their last match Saturday morning they did look broke. They didn't make a single shot during the match, including auto and they were barely driving. If I remember correctly, they never moved more than 1-2 feet from the pyramid. Clearly, something was wrong. After the match we discussed taking 217 off of our pick list. We had some back and fourth as to where 217 should be on our pick list. In the end they ended up 6th on our list of second round picks. However, the 5 teams ahead of them were taken in the first or second round.

In the end, we rolled the dice with 217 with the knowledge that they were broke. It was a high risk, high reward pick on our part. We would either get them in some state of repair and get a great pick or fail to and struggle along during the elimination tournament. I'm not going to get into numbers and specifics as it's late and irrelevant to this thread. However, we felt that 217 could play a specific role between us and 1986. Another thing we took into account was Paul's coaching ability, lets face it - there's something to be said for 2 state championships, 6 Einstein appearances, 2 world championships, 1 championship finalist and countless regional wins. Some people have a knack for winning, Paul is one of them. With this in mind, we rolled the dice and made the pick.

After alliance selections, I went straight to 217's pit and had a colorful conversation with Paul about how they were broke and how dumb we were for picking them. I told him to get his pit crew to their pit so we could figure out what needed to be fixed and fix it. I also brought in kids from our pit crew to help assist in repairs. It was an all hands on deck situation. Some may say this was a dumb move on our part, but we looked at who the back up robot (2439) would be and felt comfortable in being able to work well with them in the event that we were unable to repair 217. Having 2439 as the backup robot was an insurance policy that eased our mind about picking 217.

Throughout the elims 217 was plagued with issues. In some matches, they didn't shoot everything in auto, in some matches they didn't shoot anything in auto. In some matches their full court never worked consistently. In fact, we even had to call a timeout between our two semi-final matches to allow us more time to repair some electrical issues they were having.

I hope this helps clarify things,
Jon

[greasemonkey]

maybe they just fixed and had favorable qualities

[chantal68]

I just have a couple of questions on this issue. As part of our team's scouting crew, I thought I was losing my mind when 217 came out in QFs and started shooting full court. "What!" I thought. "How did I miss THAT? I need to resign my post."

Then later someone told me that they had NOT been shooting full court all weekend...which is the correct answer? I totally missed their MO, or that their FCS was brand new?

Second, based on our scouting data (not my own personal skill), we did not see 217 as a viable pick option (no disrespect intended to 217). Therefore this makes me curious what data or skills other teams were noting that put 217 on the radar at all.

I ask these questions in the hopes of expanding our team's scouting ability because we are still very much learning. Thank you.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by chantal68

I just have a couple of questions on this issue. As part of our team's scouting crew, I thought I was losing my mind when 217 came out in QFs and started shooting full court. "What!" I thought. "How did I miss THAT? I need to resign my post."

Then later someone told me that they had NOT been shooting full court all weekend...which is the correct answer? I totally missed their MO, or that their FCS was brand new?

Brand new? No. I wasn't at the event and certainly did not watch every match that 217 played in, but I didn't see 217 using their full court shooting ability in the two or three qualification matches of theirs I saw on Newton. However, they had used it at all of their previous events, including as a key component of their winning strategy at Michigan State Championship (where they essentially played the same role they were playing for the #1 alliance on Newton). I assume their internal assessment was that they could score more points as a cycling robot than as a full court shooter, and opted to pursue that strategy during the qualification on Newton.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Brand new? No. I wasn't at the event and certainly did not watch every match that 217 played in, but I didn't see 217 using their full court shooting ability in the two or three qualification matches of theirs I saw on Newton. However, they had used it at all of their previous events, including as a key component of their winning strategy at Michigan State Championship (where they essentially played the same role they were playing for the #1 alliance on Newton). I assume their internal assessment was that they could score more points as a cycling robot than as a full court shooter, and opted to pursue that strategy during the qualification on Newton.

They cycled in the match with us and they did it pretty well. I thought their full court shooting worked in 1538's favor since they eat up everything on the floor so basically 217 was a long distance feeder for them.

[Racer26]

Am I the only one that can look at this scenario and say, "If I was 217, I'd probably decline several alliances, but would still accept 1538/1986's invitation"?

1538 and 1986 together have a wealth of strong team members, as does 217. If I was on 217, I could easily see them thinking, "Yeah, with these partners, we can maybe do this", where with weaker partners they might think it impossible.

Having met and spoken with Paul on a few occasions, I'm confident in saying that the intent was not 'convince everyone to leave us for the #1 alliance'.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Racer26

Am I the only one that can look at this scenario and say, "If I was 217, I'd probably decline several alliances, but would still accept 1538/1986's invitation"?

I can't say you're the only one, but you're probably in the minority. If you're going to accept a pick from #1 and try like heck to fix your robot, you're going to accept a pick from #8 and try like heck to fix your robot. To act otherwise is to admit that you're really just planning on riding #1's coattails with your broken, unfixable robot.

Originally Posted by EricLeifermann

Is it right to tell teams you are done and then accept an invitation to an alliance? If you were going to accept no matter what , why even take the time to tell teams you're broken?

If your robot is broken and requires significant repairs to reach some sort of competitive level, is it right to withhold that information from teams and hope you get pick based on prior competition's performance or reputation? How do you think the #4 or #5 seed would feel when they discovered they spent a pick on a robot that was barely working? I think 217's choice was one of two honorable paths they could have picked. The other option being to decline any pick because they felt their robot truly was completely and utterly unfixable. (Caught fire at the PDB and significantly damaged 80% of the wiring or something. Though even then you could get a driving robot together.)