Picking alliances

[KTorak]

My best advice is to ignore the rankings and to make your own independent ranking system. We ranked teams this year based on average number of tubes scored per match and quality of ramps. Friday night me and another mentor were up to midnight at the Holiday Inn (BMR) making decisions on alliance selection...even though we were about 17 and didnt expect to be picking. However, we moved up on Saturday and then moved up to 7th seed during alliance selection. We ended up turning down the number 5 seed in order to select our own alliance. It actually payed off because we made it to the finals.

Should you sell your team? I think so. Selling your team can be the key to being selected, even though you may be a lesser known team.

[Justin M.]

We didn't really sell as much as I would of hoped, so we didn't get picked unfortunatly. We would of made the top 8 if it wasn't for a few technicalities that lost us the game (SPOILERS!!!), the second day of seeding matches. We were one of the good, consistant, high scorers, but we had very little time to practice before ship, and the field team was a little shakey at the Philly Regional. If we had some more practice with the rack, we could of done some improvements beforehand instead of the practice day, which eventually led to missing more practice matches, etc.

All a learning experience, the best we can do now is prepare even more for next year. Hopefully we'll be attending the NJ regional as well as Philly and Nats, so we'll be an even stronger team than before - and maybe even become a finalist somewhere.

[cire]

1015 was in a simular situation at GLR:

We were seeded 45th out of 59. We did try to "sell" our selfs to the top teams. We felt that we were a lot better then our seeding rank. Based on 1504's scouting data we were the 8th best tube scorer (total of 18 in 8 matchs). We had some bad luck with partners and so on. It seemed like nobody really noticed us though, and we got picked 15th (by the 2nd alliance on the 2nd time arround!). Our scouters had talked with the 2nd alliance before, which may or may not have helped them pick us. Our alliance managed to win the competition! I think this was partialy because nobody noticed we were such a good tube scorer, and the 2nd alliance got to pick a reliable bot for a 3rd partner to make a good alliance.

Anyways, I think that you should sell yourself if you have a great robot. Not all teams have great scouting data like 1504. I know last year we made it to the eliminations for the first time ever after 4 years. We were not prepared to pick partners and ended up not knowing who to pick really. So yes, teams dont know who to pick, and just letting them know who you are doesnt hurt anything. Just as long as you dont do it in the wrong way I dont think it is "desperate".

[LightWaves1636]

Originally Posted by geowasp

Ok, so team 1552 did not get selected into eliminations, either
a) they were not a good robot
b) they are ranked 40 out of 45
c) they are a good robot, but failed to exemplify their abilities in the round robin rounds, for whatever reason (new non-random alliance partner selections, etc. )

should they have attempted to "sell" themselves to the higher seeds, if they think the rankings do not reflect their actual ability, or should they simply wait and see, hoping that scouting by other teams would've noticed them? Does it seem desperate if a lowly ranked team attempts to make a final effort to convince potential alliance captains to pick them? In ideal conditions, rankings should reflect a team's ability, but we all know in around 10 matches, some unexpected teams can happen, and a good robot worthy of going into eliminations can easily end up with a losing record, and in the bottom of the rankings. So, my question to the FIRST community out there is: what would you do to get your team into eliminations if you know your team has a great robot, but your rankings are absolutely abyssmal come alliance selections?

I thought you guys had a nice looking bot but 40? eesh, but I wasn't able to watch any matches because I stayed in the pit keeping it tidy and doing repeat ability tests on our robot. AND NO, it does not seem desperate when a low ranked team makes attempts in smooching up to other teams as a final attempt. As long as the teams got good scouts, than they'll know exactly which teams to pick for alliance and not just base it off of rank or else team 1 would pick team 2, team 3 picks team 4 and so on and so forth and teams like us wold have never gotten chosen. But then again if a team didn't show a good performance in the prelims, it's very hard to say "we want them". We dropped from 1st to 18th in three matches, we were dominating the entire morning up until everyone started pinning us and our alliances wouldn't help us and try to score it themselves but everyone knew we had a mean bot because of how well we performed in the majority of our matches. Plus 1583 was able to get 555 to chose us because we were one of the very few bots who had the clearance to get up. But for the question, I would most defiantly have the entire team be talking to the top 8 teams constantly. didn't work for us at 18th though for most of the other teams but as long as someone wanted 1583 we were good.

[Jared W]

In the Florida Regional, SPAM Team 180 (us) picked Team 233 Pink and they were last seed. They were just unlucky and were paired with the wrong teams. We were 6th seed, and ended up losing in the Semi-finals...all 3 games. Pink exemiplified their great arm potential, and it showed in their scoring, not in their ranking. We wouldn't have been able to scout so well if it hadn't had been for our 30+ kids in the stands =).