as a rookie team member, i feel obligted to ask this question: howdo the vetran teams feel of having a rookie in their alliance and do they try to avoid them when the pick teams during the final rounds?
In my experience, any team’s joy at having a partner is based solely on their past performance. I know my team doesn’t make judgements on a team until they’re in the scouting database for a few matches, and we can get a reliable readout on how they’re doing. The one exception may be teams that have performed very well in the past.
Teams tend to pick their partners based on how they perform. We thought team 1038 was insane to pick a rookie team for their alliance on Curie Field at Nationals last year, but it worked out pretty well. If your team performs well enough, it’s not like another team is going to be “too cool” to pick you.
It really depends on what your bot preforms well in.
This year especially you are going to have to work with a rookie sooner or later so you might as well bury any presumptions and get busy working on strategy or else they won’t be the one who’s the problem in the alliance.
Last year was our teams rookie year. The reason we got picked at the peachtree regional was of the fact that we did one thing very well and kept to it. If you want to be seen by the veterans just try your best at one or two things and not a million at a time.
our team(rookie) was picked due to our consistency last year. its totaly off how you perform, and if you perform consistently
We were all rookies once!
When you are at the regional no one cares if you are a rookie. You are a part of the family.
Working together for the better!
Team 1446
Rookie or not- a good partner is consistent in how they play, willling to cooperate with the alliance and the robot/team does what they claim to be able to do.
We love to have rookie partners if they meet these criteria because they are less likely to try to dominate how the alliance works. Bring em’on.
We do this for fun and competition.
WC 
When you go to your first competition you will see that teams dont treat rookies any different than a veteran team. In 2002 we teamed up with a rookie team, 1126, and team 27 in the buckeye regional and we won. If you can build a reliable robot that will complement that teams alliance you have just as good a chance as a veteran.
If your a rookie and you perform well people will pick you. In the end people don’t care if your a rookie or not, because if you can show your stuff and help your alliance win people will not care that you are a rookie.
Also alliance picking can be somewhat political. Two years ago at New Haven we saw teams picking teams they had founded, even when their robots were broken. Some regional’s are open minded, but in some there are some old alliances
I would like to reiterate what has been said here: alliance partners are picked based on the performance of a team, not the number of years that they have been in FIRST. Last year, my team picked a rookie team, 1272, as an alliance parter for the elimination rounds in the Archimedes division. We also picked team 45, a well known and highly successful veteran team. 1272 played an INCREDIBLE game, and we picked them for their phenomenal ability to collect and score with the balls…high scores at that…consistently. It would have been silly for us not to pick them just because they were a rookie team! We felt that their level of competition was a good match for ours and team 45’s… so therefore we picked them. We ended up doing spectacularly well with 1272 and 45; we were division finalists on Archimedes, which in itself is saying something (Archimedes was quite competitive last year).
In short, the ability to play the game well is what ultimately determines a team’s “selectability”. Work hard, play hard, and do your best; that is what will ultimately help you gain recognition when the time comes to pick alliance partners.
– Jaine
My team was rookie in 2004 and we were chosen to an alliance in the finals.
We were defeated only in the semifinals, that was an awesome experience.
It will depends on how well your robot can do something and what kind of ally they need.
My own little personal anecdote - last year in Sacramento our pit was next to that of a (rookie, I think?) team called the Bad News Bears (don’t remember the number)
They had not known that there was a shipping deadline and had literally nothing but a bunch of parts and some plywood the first day.
~scroll forward a day~
After losing our last two matches of the day (or something like that) and dropping out of our coveted top 8 position, we ended up being picked by none other than the 3rd place Bad News Bears…
Never underestimate any team, not even the rookies 
Depending on your point of view, a few teams might not have been.
Big Red Robotics (19), Dynamos (250), Gael Force (126), TechnoKats (45), WPI (190), and Xcats (191) were all part of the original FIRST robotics competition in 1992. I don’t think it makes a lot of sense to use the label “rookie” for a team competing that year…and of course, the next year, the returning teams were all veterans. 
Like all others teams that i have been in first for some time we pick based on how well you play the game and what you can do that we cant.
Last year in portland we were a rookie team, and we were set up right next to the Issaquah Robotics Society (Dont mess with the IRS I think was their little slogan thing) which was another rookie team I am pretty sure. In any case we had a few disasters along the way, but we were pretty good at capping goals, but even so we were totally shocked when they picked us as aliance partners along with another team that was all wearing green (I got their number upstairs but Im lazy). Then both of their robots had electrical problems, and we had to pretty much singlehandedly take on other aliances. That wasnt fun because it meant we got to double empty goals, but the point is that all you have to do is have a few desireable qualities that fit with another teams strategy, then they dont care if your team didnt exist until last week, they will still pick you.
There is another option. You can seed, pick your alliance, and win the regional. That’s what the rookie team I mentored (1405) did last year.
Who said that the rookies aren’t going to be the ones picking? Last year we were the ones picking at the NJ regional. We were in the top 8 at the Chesapeke Regional but we were picked by 25 (Raider Robotics) and at nationals we ended up being picked by 281. Nobody cares if you are a rookie team because picks are done by who performs the best and not by who has the lower number!
GO 1403!!!