Is it normal that no matter how good a rookie team is, they don’t get picked during alliance selections? I know of rookie teams that placed 13 and 16 after qualifications in St. Louis and neither were chosen.
Not at all. 6314 was selected and got to Einstein just last week.
5136 is also a good example of this from 2014. They were the 3rd pick of the 1678/1114/1640 alliance.
It’s not because they’re a rookie team. Every year teams in the top 20+ of their division (or at any event for that matter) are not picked.
Some rookie teams picked at St. Louis:
6334 - 48th Seed Archimedes- 2nd pick of Alliance 2- F
6329 - 37th Seed Carson- 2nd pick of Alliance 4 - QF
6763 - 26th Seed Daly- 3rd pick of Alliance 8 - QF
6387 - 53rd Seed Darwin- 3rd pick of Alliance 2- F
Thanks for this info. I wonder if higher seeded Rookie teams wonder why they weren’t picked. I will take a look at climbs completed of the rookie team I was following.
As a fellow rookie team we learned the hard way in our first event that rank means nothing unless you are picking. You can have a great schedule to earn those RP but when it comes to your bot’s individual performance other teams are very wary. We sat in 17th at WPI only to watch teams in the 30’s get picked over us. It was from other teams in our area that we learned that alliance selection is all about how well you work with other teams and what the scouts of those top teams think of you. On Carson we may have placed 37th but we spent two matches playing two on three and that buried both our RP and MP. Thankfully the scouts looked past rank and saw that our raw data was what they needed in an alliance member. It is also really important that in matches with or against those top teams that you really stand out.
I’m sure the vets have much more advice than myself as a rookie mentor but I figured I would share what I learned over the course of our first season.
This. Frame it, hang it on the wall.
I have seen teams picked from the very. last. spot. in the rankings–and win the event. Granted, they were busy playing bruising defense…
Rank means that you’ve done whatever gets you rank points this year, they’ve been calculated out, and you got so many. It’s a function of how well your various alliances did. If you happen to be paired with your local powerhouses or at least have a functional alliance every match, you can do surprisingly well. If you can’t carry an alliance, though, you’re vulnerable to weak partners.
Rank matters if you’re in the top 15 (+ ~4 at events using backup robots). Those are the teams that could be alliance captains or backups. Anywhere outside of that, you’re dependent on other teams to pick you, and they won’t pick based on rank.
Even that’s debatable. At our second district event this year (that we NEEDED to do well at to make states) we were 13th and unpicked. I remember loads of strategy discussions when I was constantly reminded that near the end of quals it’s not about winning, it’s about showcasing your robot’s peak performance (we knew we couldn’t get our rank high enough to matter).