Pit Politics

[KenWittlief]

this is an interesting question, and a good topic for a little bit of engineering analysis

the 'requirement' that we pick teams 'next to us in the pits' as alliance partners (putting this in engineering system terms) is somewhat vague and fuzzy

lets look at the data :c)

how many teams are 'next to you' in the pits?

2? Id say no. unless you are against a wall there is a team to your left and right, a team across the isle from you, two teams diagonally across the isle from you, and 3 teams behind you - thats 8 teams 'next to you' that you could take out if you were a king on a chess board

if there are 40 teams at the regional, then you have an 8 out of 40 chance of allying with one of your neighbors (1/5 = 20%) on the first pick, and a 20% chance on the second - these are accumalative odds, not exclusive, so your odds are somewhere around 40% just by placement alone.

add to that the fact that when you or or neighbor needs help in the pits, or have a break and are idle, the people you are mostly likely to interact with are your neighbors - so you get to know each other, and your machines

so even though a neighbor may not have performed well in the seeding matches, you will know which one of those 8 neighbors have a great machine inwhich the bugs have been worked out - better than you will know the other 32 machines in the pit area.

given all this, the conclusion appears to be valid - in fact, you would expect it

BTW - great observation into what professionals call 'networking'. getting to know the people around you, their skills abilities and weaknesses.

[Beth Sweet]

Originally Posted by T967

Entering into our third year I've noticed how the location of your pit can greatly affect the final picks. Alot of the teams that ally together are located in clost proximity to each other. This isn't bad I was just wondering if anyone else has noticed this?

I think that what you're saying is sort of correct. Teams are placed in the pits, near teams of similar number (aka, numerical order), and I think it would be a fair thing to say that most of the time, the teams doing the picking are going to go for the more experienced teams. The more experienced teams are going to be the ones with lower numbers and more years in the competition, and most of the time, more experience in engineering and overall knowledge, at least compared to the newer teams. A team with more experience in the engineering departments will most likely have a better robot, and, at least as I see it on my team, more experienced drivers, therefore producing a robot more appealing to the general picking public. Please note that I'm not trying to say that old teams rule and new teams stink, because that's really not my intention, just that teams with more experience have had more of an opportunity to perfect certain techniques that transfer through the years, and the older teams, due to numerical order placement, are typically together.

This is just my opinion and is more than likely wrong, and if you really want to make a note, I'm not even on engineering, so this may be 100% wrong, just my observations and opinions!