We don’t even pay attention to win loss or ranking in our scouting. It’s all about how an individual robot team performs. I’ll add that having a cooperative attitude goes a long way as that added X factor.
I think it is important to understand what type of robots the top seeds will want to pick and showcase those abilities opposed to trying to win a qualification match with a strategy that won’t get you picked*. At nearly every event there are a handful of bubble teams that would be better off switching to a support role (defense, feeding, low goal scoring, inbounding (2014)) than showcasing their sup-par scorer. If the top teams are looking for a robot to fill a specific support role and see you do it successfully in a few matches, they will likely forget that went went 1 for 15 shooting in your first 5 matches.
*Obviously follow your alliance’s agreed upon strategy…
There is a danger here in fishing for information. We’ve been to events where clearly someone was fishing for another high seeded team that was their friend (We sort of have do a lot of regionals away from our area, so we are often on the outside looking in). They were then overheard by another of our students saying “sorry, that didn’t work. They wouldn’t bite.” to the aforementioned high seeded team. You run the risk of raising peoples’ suspicions if you ask too pointed of a question about their picking strategy.
Know that if you are ranked low and the game requires defense, you should show defense Saturday morning without getting fouls. If you have cheesecaked blockers to add, add them Saturday morning. The high ranked teams will come talk to you if they need you to do something.
Definitely agree with others who have said not to talk to the high ranked teams Saturday before alliance picks. They have more important things to do than satisfy your curiosity. If you are trying to talk to them while they are finalizing their list, you are keeping them from doing what they need to do and making it extremely challenging to be graciously professional. If they are worth anything scoutingwise, they will have been watching pretty closely. I know it’s maddening. We have been on both ends of the rankings over the years.
I agree with you on all points. There is a lot to be said for data and scouting but advertising your team is crucial to be on an ideal alliance. Here are some basic steps for advertising your team.
1.) Initial contact, greeting, and asking to speak with the alliance selector
2.) Flattery, their team is good and there are reasons you want to be with them. Talk about everything they can do well. You should be using scouting data for your claims.
3.) Complement, how do you complement their team, what do you offer to bring the most potential to their alliance. Why should they pick you? What scouting data do you have to show them of your performance? (optional) Do you have video of a recent match in which you did something special like climb? (optional)
4.) Analysis, show off your alliance picking analysis and playoff game analysis to see how things will pan out and what critical ability you will offer. At our 10K regional we knew they weren’t many robots who could get in enough balls for their alliance to capture in playoffs so even though we were a low goal shooter we stressed the importance of that capture and how a low goal shooter putting in 4-5 low goals consistently is worth more than high goal shooters who can only score 2 consistently. We didn’t always score 4-5 low goals but we focused on matches where we didn’t have to be concerned about breaching and showed alliance captains our potential which averages of scouting data might not show. We advertised as a 1st pick.
5.) Overall playoffs strategy, at 10K we saw that the 1st seed alliance had a pretty clear shot to the win (but Highland’s alliance was awesome in giving them a run for their money!), however there would be at least 2 wild cards dropped by that alliance. When we went around advertising ourselves we made it clear that our goal was to make it to the finals, pick up those wild cards, and qualify for the Championships. We would try to win if possible, but making it to the finals was our primary, realistic objective. We would achieve this by assuring our alliance the capture and scoring lots of points, using the second pick of our alliance captain to deny the other team the capture because most high goal shooters aren’t able to score many boulders under defense (great job 5996!)
We (4th seed) were selected by the Firebears (3rd seed) along with 5996 and we made it to the finals, and our whole alliance is going to Saint Louis! There is a lot to be said for strategy in the alliance selection and advertising your team because quals performance doesn’t always reflect the extent of your team’s abilities! There’s a lot of strategy involved in how you advertise to certain teams as Caleb has pointed out but there’s more than I would like to cover in this post. I just wanted to give a framework for the basic advertising plan.
That being said, don’t just advertise to every team. That is annoying. Advertise to teams who you want to be on an alliance with and that you have something to offer to that you believe they would like. We didn’t advertise to 2052 even though they are one of our favorite teams and are so amazing (congratulations on Chairman’s!) because their best options were clearly 525, 5434, or 2502.
If only it were that easy 
Your best “advertisement” is to have a drive team that is courteous, listens and communicates well, doesn’t have an abusive drive coach and is well organized. We move teams up our draft list when our drive coach says “we loved working with them.” 5012 was a case in point last year for 118 and us. And alternatively most teams have a “do not pick” list built on poor experiences with particular teams.
I cannot agree more. Last year on 1257, we had a sheet completed after each match in which the drive rates how well it got along with our alliance partners’ drive teams, and stated how much they’d like to work with them in eliminations. We frequently referred to these sheets during picklisting.
Its super easy if you get lucky with the design of your robot the first time every time.
I don’t see why people aren’t just getting good at being lucky, all you gotta do is make a few sacrifices to the random number generation gods, never walk under ladders, and avoid black cats.
This is what I made for our team for our 2nd district event. We had a scout go around and hand these out, and handed them to anyone who came by scouting us. Technically, this isn’t helping you get picked, but it’s better than nothing.
Actually…
That’s just about one of the best ways to advertise yourself there is. A small sheet/card with what you can do or have done, all verifiable.
I like this a lot. It’s concise, verifiable, and there’s no fluff to sift through, just facts.
Let your performance speak. Good scouting will find you regardless of wins/losses on the field 
I have two suggestions:
- move Cheval de Frise and Ramparts to the bottom of Teleop so it is easy to see which items are left off of Auto. I know this will break up the categories, if you are a stickler on that you can put blank spaces in the Auto list that correspond to where they are on the Teleop list.
- either remove or rebrand on 8th seed captain. The interpicking among the top 12 doesn’t tell me anything about your capabilities. Ideally you would put “Used strategy to captain an alliance through ___finals” but since putting quarter in that blank doesn’t say much about your strategy abilities, it might be better to say “preformed consistently through all previous playoff matches” since that will convey you are able to handle the turn around time of quarter finals and not break on the field.
- (I know I said two, but I saw this after posting) Change Blacksburg Stats to Blacksburg ranking stats. I first thought you crossed 605 defenses. I would also rearrange so that they are in the order of the ranking sort.
I know your 2nd event is over but I wanted to post this for other people that might see it and can keep it in mind for the future.
I’m going to get this on a gigantic sign and hang it in the pit at champs. If you wan to get picked, be nice! Be friendly! Show that you’re competent! Make sure your drive team is closely connected with scouting, so that you can develop well-founded strategies.
Sadly, this isn’t always the case. I’ve seen the 7th highest scoring team at an event go unpicked while teams who scored ~25 points per match got first picked by low seed captains who desperately need all the scoring power they can get. Mistakes happen, and good teams sometimes get forgotten. I suppose I was a little harsh with my first post. Talking to teams is okay to get your name out there, but don’t try to get yourself on a picklist, because you’ll probably just get taken off whatever list you were on. Talk about what you do and why you’d work well on an alliance, but don’t haggle.
I think all this shows is that clearly the lower seeded captains didn’t have great scouting. There’s not much you can do on your end should this be the case.
I agree with many of the other people here that there is not a ton of value in trying to sell yourself to other teams outside of field performance.
There are two times where I would recommend talking to the top seeded teams, but I would recommend doing it first thing Saturday morning.
1.) You had an issue with your robot that caused you to look worse than you are, and you have since resolved that issue so your performance should be significantly better going forward. Example, 1086 had issues with their catapult at the Central VA event. The first day they were performing significantly below their capability. On Saturday morning their drive coach approached us (we were seeded 1st) and told us what the problem was, how they fixed it, and asked us to watch them and give them a chance to demonstrate that they were working to potential. They showed in their Saturday matches that they were working, we picked them, and they averaged 5+ high goals per match on their way to an event win.
2.) You have a niche capability that you have not demonstrated during qualifying that you believe their alliance will need for eliminations. For example, last year at the VA regional, we were capable of stacking totes and capping other peoples stacks, as well as accessing the recycle containers in the middle. Due to our seeding, and alliance partners on Saturday, we continued to almost exclusively build and cap stacks by our selves. Never demonstrating our ability to get the recycle bins from the landfill, and cap other 4+ stacks. The top alliances needed someone with this ability, and although we had it, we never demonstrated it so they didn’t know. 1610 on the other hand made it a point to demonstrate this on Saturday morning, and were selected by the alliance that went on to win.
The key in both of these situations is the ability to demonstrate the abilities. Talk is cheap, which is why I have never put much value in pit scouting. When we seed high, we trust our scouts, they will identify if you are performing well, and your partners have not. However if you think there is a reason why your performance to a point was worse than your performance will be going forward, then it is fair and valuable to explain that to teams, and demonstrate it.
Sadly this is true. After an experience few years ago watching a 2nd year team fumble through it’s first experience as an alliance captain, I now go around and check with the newer teams that might be alliance captains. At SVR I informed one team on Sat morning that they might be a captain and they were shocked. Fortunately they had a mentor team they could get scouting data from (and had a pretty good alliance.) I’ll work with those teams to help them develop a pick list if they’re unprepared.
So my suggestion is that if you’re just trying to get onto an alliance (which is an accomplishment in itself), you might approach those younger teams about sharing your scouting data if you think that you might be a first pick for them (or a 2nd pick of the 8th or 7th alliance).
To be honest you’re not going to influence the draft lists for the first 2 to 5 captains by talking to them. They’ll rely on their own info sources.
“you’re not going to influence the draft lists for the first 2 to 5 captains by talking to them”
Actually that is not entirely true… we were Captain #2 and had a team approach us morning of day 2 (of course we had our first pick locked in) but they were pinning for our second pick. They reminded me of how we played well together put up over 100 and the fact they raised from mid-30’s to high teens with an explanation. They were not on my top 20 list at all but that conversation , a good explanation and a trip to meet the team put them back on it. Plus the belief I felt in the kid who approached us.
When it came time to pick they were already selected but they would have been our pick had they not been selected (I told them they likely would be as high teen ) meanwhile both of us on our alliance already agreed to pick them based on their second day performance and after discussing with our partner. So I would not say blanket captains 1-5 are so locked in they won’t listen. We did and we have a fine scouting department with a deep enough list, never hurts to get more details we may have missed. Sometimes even good scouts can miss relevant info…and picking past 20 I can see where a team may be able to talk their way in to be the selection in the 20-24 range.
I know our pick list in CVR had about eight solid picks, the rest were not as solid and the ones towards the end “needed work” so the ones at the end of my our list were close to those not on it. That is where I believe tail end selections can work their way in onto pick lists sometimes especially if they have solid reasons.
This year at FLR, after three rocky starts (new camera causing glitching right out of auto, and new gearing on the drivetrain due to chewed-up gear boxes the previous week), we played seven of the best games we’ve ever played in the history of our team in terms of individual robot performance…
And were 2-8, ranked 44th out of 48 teams. Without any kind of off-field advertising I had no doubt that we were going to be picked, and when the time came we were the 8th overall pick.
If you’re not in the top eight (or maybe ten), rank doesn’t matter. Do your best on the field and trust the scouts to notice. (And when it comes down to it, I’d rather fly under the radar of teams with bad scouts, and get picked by teams with good scouts, because good scouting usually correlates to high performance.)
Yes, that illustrates a good exception, but they had very specific info to convey about their lack of performance. And we do get requests for whether we are looking for particular traits and we’ll let them know what they might do in the next match (which surprisingly almost never happens.) That can influence our choices, but those bots are probably already on our list.