Haven’t seen anyone comment on this… First time in a couple years FIRST has told us the pairings ahead of time. On Friday morning at KSC we got the match numbers and pairings for the entire regional.
When we asked a pit boss if they meant to give this info to us, they said they may not go by the agenda and don’t count on the pairings. Not true, every match followed true to form. Did VCU get the same info?
I LIKE IT!!! You have time to talk with your partner. You can discuss multiple strategies. You can scout your opposition and see if they are working. You can focus on your partner and make sure they are in top working order.
A kinder, gentler FIRST.
Now if we can just get teams to figure out that your QPs equal three times the loser’s score. Repeat after me… 3X0=0. 3X0=0. 3X0=0. 3X0=0. 3X0=0…
Yep, same thing. The practice rounds got delayed some times (4 robots to 1 robot were on the field at one time) eventhough the people who wern’t on previosily did the next round.
Yep, same thing at VCU. I have to say it was great! As coach, there wasn’t one match where I didn’t talk to our ally about strategy before we got queed. I also scouted out the opposition. It made the queing area much less stressful then last year (I wan’t on the operator team then, but I’ve heard how crazy it was).
I noted this earlier. I love it!!! This gives everyone an opportunity to plan strategy in advance. The result is you get a better match than if you have only two minutes to plan. It makes up for having only one mentor on stage. In previous years, we had one stage member responsible for strategy only. They needed to know the scoop on every possible combination of teams in a match. What a pain. This is a much better way to do it. Whoever approved this idea deserves a big Thank You.
I like these “announced pairings” too (It makes my job as a strategist much easier). However, I found it very funny when I was coordinating the game plan with our alliance partner for our first match of the day, when I’m interrupted by another team’s strategist saying “hey, I’m from team X and we’ll be together in your 8th match, I’d like to discuss some strategy”. No doubt, it’s good to plan ahead, and scouting way ahead of time is good, but it just seems rediculous to approach teams this far in advance. A lot of teams are more worried about the match at hand and working out the kinks in the strategy.
This new enhancement of FIRST opens a door to more possibillities of strategy. In fact, it seems it would be beneficial to have a slew of strategists where each one is coordinating and researching the robots and teams for a single match. Also, before each match, I had the luxury of developing contingency plans, if-then scenarios, the whole shabang! It certainly increases the level of competition, and that’s good for everyone!
~Chris