What would cause you to put a team on a Do Not Pick list (DNP)?
Idea from:
Personally, teams that are trying to get disabled / intentionally putting themselves in bad situations to draw fouls/cards should get DNP. One example is a team who had their main breaker facing outwards right above their bumper.
Our primary reason is if the team is too hard/impossible to work with, or the drive teams have too many issues working with each other/just don’t mesh.
As long as those 2 things aren’t an issue most other problems can be worked around
mecanum
I think for us at least, there is an important distinction.
One case is “very low on a pick list”. Usually this is for repair issues or poor design choices that would make it difficult to forge an effective performing alliance with them. But not impossible, and if push comes to shove, we will happily make the best of the situation and work with them. This has happened many times, and I expect it will happen again in the future.
Separate is the “some massive issue that we will not work with them under any circumstances, and would rather go home early than attempt to work with them”. This is usually some massive gracious professionalism issue. This has only happened once in the past 8 years to my knowledge, and I expect it to be very rare.
Bad drivers much more often than bad engineering. Drivers who bait fouls, drivers who commit a lot of fouls, and drivers who are seriously hard to work with / not GP are not those I’d want on my alliance.
If a bot isn’t the most well-engineered but the drivers are driven and the alliance has good cooperation, good driving can compensate for quite a bit.
Similar to @gerthworm above,
Things that will categorically, all the time, put you on the dnp list:
Things that start to wear on us
If this is an inexperienced team I guarantee its not a strategy.
I’d say obviously refusing to do strategies that would benefit the alliance (If we’re up against a really good offensive bot and we need a bot to slow them down and you refuse, you’re going on the DNP list).
Note on the above: we have said in intra-team strategy discussion “Ask them to play defense, but its not important that they do” in matches where we feel that it will likely be a blowout either way, but we want to give our alliance a slightly better chance. The above does not apply there.
I’ll write DNP just for shorthand in personal notes but will be open to picking teams if brought up by our alliance partners with the following distinction: Their bot looks slow, easily broken, poor driving, tippy, etc. This is not a true DNP, its just a note saying “please try and find other bots to go on our pick list”. This includes mecanum second bots, and first bots will get heavily punished on our lists for being mecanum in a normal season.
The hate on mecanums had made some really good meacanum robots fall in alliance selection. I’ll gladly continue to take advantage.
thank you.
just because some drivers get bullied when they have mecanum, doesnt mean all teams do. just train your drivers better.
Exactly this. Examples I seen: being completely uncooperative in alliance strategy, or worse agreeing and then going your own way. Examples: I thankfully have not: making bigoted comments to a team member or any sort pf physical confrontation.
My majority-girls team had a “DNP Creeps” policy – if any member reported a member of a team at our event being misogynistic or anything short of completely respectful and GP towards themselves or other female students, they were a guaranteed DNP.
In more serious cases, this policy could extend to turning down being picked by that team, though this never happened in my time there.
The phrase “we want to show off our XYZ” (a completely untested auto/mechanism) the alliance convinces them it’s a bad idea strategically, and they do it anyway, also stranding themselves in front of a loading station or goal.
If I had a nickel for every time that’s unfolded I’d have at least a quarter and one more first seed.
In a scouting meeting I tend to differentiate like this as well.
There is DNP, which is largely non robot issues but issues with GP or just general personality problems. This could be refusing to cooperate on strategy in a quals match, disrespectful behavior towards my students or others, and things of that nature.
Then we have NWD, which is “not worth discussing.” These are the teams that due to robot functionality are just not going to get picked. These are your chassis bots, bots with numerous mechanical failures, etc.
I’ve found “DNP” being overused both by my own team and others so I started introducing a different category to sort of make DNP carry more weight.
100%. One of the most accurate scoring machines in Indiana last season ran mecanum. They won district champs.
Mecanum haters gonna hate.
I, too, would love to compete in the land of the world’s friendliest defenders lol
I’m a mecanum hater not for teams fielding them, but not giving enough drive practice and fully utilizing the drive system. I think I’ve seen maybe 10 holonomic drivetrains now paired with drivers that really know what it’s capable of, and the rest sort of just tank drive and slide side to side occasionally.
There’s a handful of kids out there driving mecanum and making it look like swerve.
I present to you the majority of robots in FRC, including robots running swerve.
“making mecanum look like swerve” is being edged out by “making COTS swerve look like a Kitbot” on my list of go-to lines. At least swerve is literally simpler than building a Kitbot (mechanically) now.
By far my most common reason for placing a team on a DNP list is excessive fouls.
I’ll just follow up with Indiana runs pretty small district events and I do feel like 7617 was overlooked at times due to their drive train. In events that small you have to look at the total body of work and the overall offensive contribution. When we picked them it felt like a steal for the 2nd bot on the 7 seed and I’m sure the alliance that drafted them at district champs felt the same way. Making a bot like that DNP in an event that small due to running mecanums is a bad scouting choice.
In general I think teams gear too slow while running mecanum too.
Mecanum does not earn a DNP in any way, it is just a data point for strategic planning in the same way that a kitbot or custom WCD is.
The branded term GP is a pretty good description of the main thing I consider with my team. Can we work together professionally? Bullying, threats, misogyny, and the like are all DNP. Lots of fouls and evidence that the drivers do not understand the rules is next in line. Consistently broken robots are the final thing, though you can get creative with making stuff work if you pay attention for some time prior to alliance selection.