**FIRST EMAIL**/Team Update #16

[Mark McLeod]

Greetings Teams:



In the spirit of Continuous Improvement, we have made some changes to team seeding points. The following is included in Team Update #16: <http://usfirst.org/uploadedFiles/Robotics_Programs/FRC/Game_and_Season__Info/2010_Assets/Team_Updates/Team%20Update%2016.pdf>



Now that the competition season has begun, and teams have been exposed to the 2010 ranking system, we would like to elaborate on the intent behind the system. Coopertition™ is a core tenet of FIRST, as evidenced by the patent FIRST received for it last year. Breakaway’s ranking system uses the combination of alliance scores and Coopertition Bonuses to rank teams based on their ROBOT performance during the Qualification Matches. The objective of the system is to reward high-scoring, close, competitive matches. Furthermore, we intended to make a disincentive for teams to win with a high margin.



Several members of the community have identified opportunities within the ranking system to achieve very high scores, but at the cost of the competitive nature of the event. In an effort to remedy the issue, we have amended the ranking system to add 5 seeding points for the winners’ score. The expectation is that winning will be a priority, but still values the high, close-scoring, matches.



Go Teams!