Uncooperative Alliance Partners

FIRST General Forum
#41

If you’ve been a driver/coach at any point at all then you have many stories like this. Lots of issues arise when the strategy is done by a “strategy” person then you get to the field and the drive team has either no clue or they’ve decided to do something totally different without coming back to discuss. Not saying there’s anything wrong with a strategy person, just that they should be actually communicating what was discussed.

My other favorite is discussing with a team’s driver what to do during a match and then get to the field and they’ve changed drivers…

As a coach you have to be aware of what you’re partners are doing and adjust accordingly. If you require the vault say for Levitate and your vault bot is AWOL then you or your other partner has to step up. Not much different than a partner breaking down.

HPs not understanding the rules or doing their job is a whole other pet peeve of mine…

#42

The other thing, were they just agreeing to stop you from talking? We had to do that to a team once, they couldn’t understand that a drive train with almost zero pushing power and only 2 wheels shouldn’t play defense, especially when they shed 30 pounds of weight since the last competition. Our robot was fast but was not good for defense.

We played defense for a second, but when it was obvious that we slowed the other teams down not at all we went back and played the way our robot was designed.

#43

I like to do a pre-match huddle in the queue line (usually while the match before ours is setting up on the field) with all members of the three drive teams. The strategy board is in the middle of the group, and I walk through the agreed upon match plan. This is a good refresher for everyone, and an opportunity for students/coaches to ask clarifying questions and get on the same page before the match. I always end the huddle with a reminder to have fun regardless of the outcome.

I’ve only been doing huddles for a few years, but it’s been a good addition to our pre-match strategy routine.

-Mike

#44

Seriously? This kind of makes my point.

#45

how many wins you got?

#46

how many wins u got

looks like you got got

#47
#48

Looks like 1014 is having more success than 716 on the field this year :]

But for real take these garbage posts elsewhere, we don’t need them. Thanks buddy.

#49

You are by no means the only team to experience this.

As other mentors and team leads have said before, the whole of the match would need to have been seen by all to make assessment. That being said, your overall performance would reflect your abilities. When we "Active"ly scout teams, not just in the pits, we see for ourselves how each team performs from the stands and log it into a program that we write. All teams, us included, can tell all other teams in the pits that we can do everything. All I will say is “the proof is in the pudding!” even though your robot may have the capability programming could work against you, you could have a mechanical failure or even a human malfunction.

All of these things work themselves out as far as “Robot Performance”. Now sometimes the algorithm works in your favor during match play and sometimes not. BUT remember what I said about “ACTIVE” scouting, it does reflect the true data of team and robot performance. Don’t waste your energies on a single team that is full of themselves. If you show grace to them, then that displays your gracious professionalism!

#50

Every been the best team on an alliance and had an aggressive strategist from another team come up to you and tell you what you are going to? I have, alot.

I have had so many aggressive strategist come up and dominate a pre-match strategy meeting that I have gotten to the point that I don’t really care what they say anymore.

Basically I like to discuss strategy in the que with the drivers and the other coaches. It is much easier to get an honest appraisal from drive teams there than anywhere else and easier to come up with an agreed upon strategy.

#51

Remind them during the match - drive coach to drive coach. As Mike states, a pre-match huddle to review the plan is also a good reminder.

I forgot to do a pre-match review with my drivers about a double climb strategy we discussed in the pits. Needless to say we didn’t execute very well at the end of that game. My bad. We weren’t trying to be “uncooperative.”

This game is very dynamic to coach and as a result is very fun to play. On the flip side, the game can get chaotic and teams may have to go with plan B or something they are more practiced at doing.

Putting someone on a DNP list without clarifying your confusion with the team in question post match is not good advice.

David

#52

One of the Quals matches last weekend, we built a solid game strategy and had a pre-match huddle to clearly go over each team’s role in the match. This was all well understood by every member of the drive team. In this case, my team was going to be responsible for the scale, Team 2 would run switch and help scale as necessary, Team 3 would focus exchange/vault only.

Immediately following autonomous, both Teams 2 and 3 drove straight for the scale to score on it (without telling me they would do so), rendering that area of the field way too crowded for our bot to complete our piece of the strategy. Meanwhile the vault was being ignored, so I instructed my drive team to switch our plan in-game and start filling the vault. I then informed the other teams of our intention to do so. The change in strategy annoyed me a bit and completely confused my drivers, but we did what we did to win the match and move on.

So, it happens… strategies fall apart and robots break down (the other most significant cause of strategy switch-ups) but thats the key to being on top of things during the match and communicating your intentions to the other coaches.

#53

Question to all…

For those of you that DNP partners in quals for being uncooperative, do you tell them this? How do you communicate this feedback?

#54

1 Like
#55

I will tell a mentor on the team if there was something serious that made us not pick them. Generally, if a team changes from agreed upon strategy we will check with them. Sometimes information we didn’t know or didn’t hear caused the change, and it was perfectly reasonable. After action chats are often helpful. Just this year we had a match where we made a mistake and got stuck on the scale. I asked an ally to push us off the scale. They heard “push the scale off of us” and didn’t want to risk a card so they didn’t. After a mentor to mentor chat we laughed at neither of us having our finest moment.

#56

I just make a mental note of their uncooperative behavior and relay it back to our scouting team. If they wouldn’t cooperate after showing them your scouting data of their robot, chances are they won’t change their tune if they know you DNPed them. Some (drive) teams aren’t worth the trouble.

#57

I have experienced my fair share of dictating teams over the years, and I have come to explicitly remember those coach’s faces and have a dislike for them. I understand that when you’re an alliance captain you earn a level of respect for being in charge, but working collectively is still important and to know inputs from your alliance partners. In one of the matches at our regional, the coach to one of the teams we were with was yelling at my drive team for a solid 10 seconds thinking the other partner’s robot was ours. He apologized, but it was still upsetting. Then later they were yelling at us to change strategy within the match despite how specific our last strategy had been in terms of order to act.

There is a high chance for complications in strategy to arise, but when that happens it’s important to make sure you at least communicate with your alliance partners. It’s also important to be understanding of alliance partners, because even if an alliance partner lets you down one match, there’s a chance there’s another match where you’re the one who was having bad luck and had to ditch what they were doing.

#58

Thank you for the replies and the insight. This was my first time experiencing this situation and wanted as much advice as possible to handle this better again in the future.

This is a good idea. We typically do the thing before our matches (except without a strategy board). But I think we could improve this. Thanks.

#59

Can’t describe how important this is. Especially if you talk with alliances before queue, it’s always important to go over your strategy! This year we had an entirely new drive team, and I think they occasionally forgot the strategy at hand. Especially if you’re with big teams, it might seem embarrassing to go ask about strategy a second time. This also gives other teams a chance to speak up a second time if they are unsure about their position.

#60

We attempt to make it very clear that we were displeased about their performance and choices, but try not to be rude at the same time (GP everyone!! Woodie is watching). It could just be that they got nervous or started panicking, or it could be their first time. I just mark them down for later reference, and will usually watch their performance in later matches.