F1nite

CVR Recap (FRC version)

So Saturday night (~11:30pm), I tried to host a picklist meeting. This went as well as you'd expect, and I basically solo'd the picklist anyways and the meeting was more of an informational meeting rather than people actually discussing and arguing. Talk about a functional scouting team huh?

Pros:

Cons:

So what happened? Well, that evening before, our team (840) along with Armor Robotics (9143) went to play Arcade games and bowling together. Unfortunately, this means we returned EXTREMELY late, and everyone was super super drained. Combined with no functional scouting team (and strategy worked but wasn't the best), this meant that the "meeting" was me just leading stuff with the lead strategist, Anish (who didn't really know specific robots). What this meant was that I basically soloed the picklist, as Anish didn't really know the robots, he just knew the alliances and how to beat each specific one (and didn't even finish his list until the following morning).

So now we cut to alliance selection. In front of us is 1323, 5940, and 841 (and 581 -- but I didn't notice or realize until it was too late. Luckily, it worked the hell out). Of course, 1323 would pick 5940 and mad-bread would win. But what would 841 do?

This was exactly my question. I wandered around the pits, and saw an 841 mentor laughing with a 581 mentor. Welp. I still had hope. I found Luciano, the 841 pit mentor, and explained to him my situation. It basically went as follows:

I then made the case for why we would be picked over 581, but also recognized that 581 was probably who they were picking as they are a known powerhouse.

Since Luciano (great guy by the way) is 841's pit/technical mentor and doesn't do this scouting stuff, I wasn't really doing an advertisement as to "pick us" more than I was trying to justify us getting picked by 841 and sort of explaining my reasoning. He basically told us (me and Kaitlyn, the drive coach who also does strats) that this is a canon event. Not very helpful in terms of advice or where to go, but this was SUPER helpful in reliving my nerves for some reason.

So, obviously, I acted as if I was going to be A3 captain, and started trying to put together an alliance.

A3 Dilemmas

(I'm going to chronicle these next sections with my memory and in chronological order. This means you kind of get the 'fog of war' that I had, and the challenges I faced.) First, I tried to find a first pick. 7157 Mubotics was very strong, and was my go-to. But here's the dilemma -- we were ranked higher than we should be, and they would probably decline if we invited them (somehow they had an easier SOS (Strength of schedule) according to statbotics so like bruh) (now that I'm checking, we did have a higher EPA compared to them; 27.1 vs 24.1). I also didn't really want to talk to them as that was scary and there were ~2 qual matches left.

But who else would I pick? 7157 was destined to have a pretty strong A6, and in this game, 2nd picks really mattered -- lots of A6/A7/A8/A5 are finalists or move to very very high standings in this game. So, I consulted with one of our new mentors (and also FRC alum), Leo about the situation. What he did was calm me down, and we figured out some priorities we wanted to find

  1. a robot with a good auto -- In my statistics, ~80% of alliances that have an auto lead end up converting the match to a w. Also, ~25-35% of the fricking points in a match are scored in auton. Combine this with the Recycle Rushesque nature of the middle game pieces, and a good auton IS necessary.
  2. yeah that's about it.

And the team with the best auton (and incidentally, EPA in hindsight) was 5817. They weren't doing so hot in the standings, but they were ranked 4th by EPA going into the competition, and were in the top few spots throughout Saturday. And so, we picked them, or had the intent of picking them.

By the way, I went outside when I was trying to calm my nerves. This was during the 2nd to last qualification match, and going back inside, I saw lots of 581 students talking with 841 students. This sealed the deal for me, and I knew that we were going to be A3 captain.

2nd pick stuffs

2nd pick. I wanted our comp to be a 2O1D. Since 5817 could cycle super hard on the speaker and we could amp, I wanted a source defense robot that would just stop the cycles.

And who was up for grabs? At this time, alliance selection had already started. In my small book of qualitative notes, there weren't too many robots that played defense and were also ranked pretty low. Many robots that were ranked low had poor driver control. Low speed, low confidence, and low driver skills. These were not defense suitable. So overall, I had only one good option (at the time), 6662.

I had seen 6662 play defense previously, and I rated it as being super good. So, I approached them. Asked about some basic statistics, and then Straight, no Chaser.

"Would you guys be comfortable playing defense?" "No."

So now what? My star defense bot that I had hoped to get was actually a tank drive that didn't want to play defense. I wasn't going to bully them into defense, and tank is kinda mid at a Cali regional. At this point, alliance selections had started, and I just saw our team pick 5817 and which they accepted doing. So who would we get?

Next candidates:

So, my team (me, Kaitlyn, Anish -- who was sick at the time) split up. I tried to find good candidates to ask and scout, while Kaitlyn and Anish actually scouted each team and came back with information. We were kind of going blind here. Anyways, we find 6657, a team that has strong driving skills and good-ish cycling, but we're unsure about their defense potential. However, they're OK playing defense.

Finally, I realize I have a partner. 5817. They have a team of scouts and strategists, and they probably also know who they want. So after finding them in the stands (at this point A8 was doing their 2nd pick), I present to them the options:

The lead strategist/scouter (not sure which one) is adamant that 6662 is the way to go. (In hindsight, after making our eventual pick, I look at my phone and many people in BAG are talking about 6662 being the way to go. 6662 ends up being A2 2nd pick.) But I tell him that we want a defense robot to win, 6662 doesn't want to play defense, and since he mentioned that he wants swerve, that 6662 is tank. Eventually, he just gets outvoted by some of his team and my team, and we end up picking 6657, and our alliance is complete.

Interlude: Smart vs Dumb

Who should you send up to alliance selection. Someone "smart", like your lead scouter or strategist, or someone "dumb", like a team captain or driver? (Here, dumb means they don't have data/don't know who the best pick is. Sure, the driver's worked with lots of other teams over the course of their qual matches, but they probably don't know much about the best robot for your alliance)

That's the dillema I faced when talking to Luciano. I even explained everything to him. And that's the main reason why I went to them. Here's the dillema:

It is MUCH better if you know who you are selecting beforehand and make an agreement with that team, because it ensures stability and certainty. Take Madtown and BREAD (1323 and 5940). They already know that they're going to be A1 and will pick each other, so there's no real reason to agonize over first pick. Those two teams can share data and just figure out who their second pick will be, after lots of careful consideration. And that's what they did. Many students from both teams stayed in 5940's pit as they watched alliance selection from a monitor, so they could just adapt to the changing situation and figure out who they wanted their 2nd to be. tl;dr: much better to coordinate your alliance first pick

So in the above case, clearly, it's much better to send someone dumb. They're only there for symbolic purposes, and they're mostly a puppet that just says the team number while the actual decision happens in the back.

And therein lies my problem. If I know that 841 picks me/us/my team, I would definitely want to send someone dumb. If we both send someone dumb, everything works out. But I don't know who's going to pick us. If I send someone smart, and I get picked by someone dumb, that person is effectively "wasted", as they are "stranded" on the field while the other strategists/scouters of our alliance are busy figuring stuff out -- that person isn't in on the discussion and they're contributions are gone.

But let's say that I pick someone who has a smart team representative. Then, I would want someone smart. I don't want to strand the other smart person, but also, those two smart people can work things out with each other and jointly figure out the best second pick, as they are the ones that know their alliance's potential the best, not us armchair/sideline strategists and scouters.

So do I send someone smart or someone dumb? This question was even further compounded by the fact that in our team, knowledge is centralized. It's not in some database that anyone can lookup, but rather chiefly in three minds; mine, Kaitlyn's, and Anish's. "Losing" one by sending them up for alliance selection would mean that our pick might be complete garbage.

Anyways, we ended up sending up Jake, our team captain, but someone "dumb".

A3!?

After alliance selection, I had some doubts about our alliance. A2 and A6 looked especially strong against us, and in this game, a win or a loss is determined by only a few points. And that's what happened to us. As we slogged through the lower bracket, in every match, it felt like there was back and forth, and anyone could win. In many of those matches, the final score (before climb points) had <5 points separating the alliances, and everyone really was holding their breaths.

We somehow managed to beat 841 again in the lower bracket and knock them out, then lost to mad-bread. The latter was to be expected, while the former was a real achievement, as this was, to put it mildly, "hella unexpected".

Takeaways