I think it was 2004 Philly Regional when a team that had already packed up their robot because they thought there was no chance of playing in the afternoon (I think they were unable to fix the robot broken) accepted as a second pick because no one told the student on the field to decline. They captain then received the highest ranked unselected team as their second pick.
There are much crazier stories over the years but this one still stands out to me.
My apologies, I completely forgot that your team was alliance 5 instead of 4. We had a great time cheering you on!
2007 the year of the algorithm of death.
In St Louis the #1 seed 1444 picked 45 who was the #37th seed.
We were ranked 30th and 45 talked 1444 into picking us. Our ring game was nonexistent but we had a unique ramp system. We never had a single match with 2 teams capable of climbing so nobody saw our ramp work. Long story short, the ramp worked great and our alliance went undefeated for the win.
2023 Beach Blitz. 4738 declines rank 4 4201 despite being seeded 12th, just barely making it in as the #8 captain, picks 2122 and 3128 and beats the 1 seed in round 1. They then proceed to make it to finals before losing to that very same 1 seed.
Beach Blitz 2021.
4414 invites invites 3647 and then 3647’s representative says their number wrong and then says a certain curse word beginning with the letter f directly into the microphone.
Another one from FIM. I don’t remember who or where it was, or what year - maybe about 10 years ago now. But a team had already qualified for MSC. They were hoping not to be a captain, but moved up into 7th. They wondered if they could decline being a captain. We couldn’t find any reason not, so 8 moved up to 7 and we continued on. The team would rather have the extra 3 or 4 hours of build time in the pits than play. (Bag and tag rules.)
And one that still haunts me. A team was called, and the MC evidently misheard or mistook the invite for another team with a similar number. “I’m sorry, they’ve already been picked.” So the captain made another choice. The originally picked team didn’t picked by another alliance, and consequently didn’t have enough points for State.
that last one is terrifying. I’m on a team that gets confused with others a lot, so this is a real fear.
This didn’t happen at all.
At Alliance 2 3940 asked 3039 they said no, then asked 3538 who said yes
At Alliance 3 4329 asked 4522 they said no, then asked 1746 who said yes
That was all the declines here is the selection starting at Cybertooths pick
My teams rookie year we were picking and said the last digit of the team that would be the future winners of the event twice so we have learned and make sure we are correct when picking
I don’t recall which event, or who it was. I watched one of the first ISR 2024 events where 2 reps had a heated fight over a second pick, to the point the head ref had to break it up.
Might be the 2000 season.
Lots of numbers called out in that one.
In 2019 up at the Wisconsin regional, my team (1710) was ranked 14th and didn’t expect to be in a picking position at all as statistically you’d have to have a lot of things fall into place for that position to be selecting. Team 4786 had to withdrawal from comp before alliance selection due to their drive train breaking and not having any replacement parts for their custom drive train (if I remember right this taught me out valuable a defensive robot was that year), teams picked almost exclusively within the top 16 and we ended up as the captain of the 8th seed. Our first time in a decade of being a captain. I was the team representative and I had been down on the field but it was such a surreal experience and I’ll always remember it.
(973 in the background is wild, as is the 550/9015 on a VP on the 1678 machine, which I can only assume is a feeder motor)
I miss the days of pneumatic heavy bots, probably rose tinted glasses, but there were some wild and fun mechanisms.
Not if I was watching online, it wasn’t, and for that one I was online.
I was physically at the 2000 Nationals. Maybe not during selection but I wouldn’t have been far.
Well I hope the wiring organization has at least improved somewhat since I was on the team!
2017 Newton: Alliance 7 Captain (744) had already made their first pick (3847) and the serpentine had come back to them to make their second pick. The two alliance representatives spent several minutes discussing their choice. The MC kept approaching them asking for their pick and at several points, the rep from 744 started to turn toward the mic only to have the rep from 3847 pull them back and continue discussing. After what seemed like 10 minutes or so, the discussion had gotten quite animated. I would call it an argument so much as a very passionate disagreement. Those of us who were in the stands started debating among ourselves who they could possibly be arguing over. The MC kept pressuring them to make a pick.
I’m not sure how long it was when they finally announced their pick, but once they announced it, we all understood what the argument was about.
They selected Team 900 who had a decent fuel shooter, but did not have a the capability to cycle gears at all.
I have never seen a selection take anywhere close to that long before or since.
As a rookie team back in 2005 at the St. Louis Regional, 1625 sent out a 40+ year old team dad with greying hair as our alliance representative and he selected 1444 and 939 to form the 2nd seed alliance and we went on to win the event.
For many years, I believed that the rules at the time didn’t indicate that alliance reps needed to be students and that the rule was only written after that year. I was mistaken and have since learned that the rule existed and somehow no one at the event flagged our team parent with a grey beard as an issue.
I was supposed to be our alliance rep but as a rookie we really didn’t know what we were doing. When it came time to decide who we were sending out to be our alliance rep, we had a talk about who had the best information to make our picks and this parent had the best notes. Now we all know better. You nailed it, Larry.
2015 Indianapolis District Event, at Lawrence North High School (home of IRI at the time).
This was the first ever district event for Indiana, so of course there was a colossal snow storm the night after the first day of qualifications. Hendricks County teams’ administration didn’t allow the teams to travel to the event on that final day. This affected 3176 and 3487.
3176 and 1529 were friendly teams; 3176 agreed to let some 1529 students drive their robot the last day (with an adult 3176 coach). 3487 did not want anybody unfamiliar with their robot driving it, which was understandable.
At the end of qualifications, 3176 was ranked 8th and 3487 was 11th. Both 3176 and 3487 declined the captaincy, so 1529 became the 8th alliance captain as a 15 rank and created the infamous PhyXT Red Card alliance.
The rest of the story is not relevant to alliance selection.
1529 leadership worked with Marc Braun at Brownsburg High School the summer of 2009 to establish 3176. The following summer, they worked with Johnny Vargo at Plainfield High School to create 3487.
