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Tournament Behavior

There are many expectations of how your teammates and coaches conduct themselves at tournaments. Many are explicitly stated in the rules, but many are not.

Overall​

  • Coaches and mentors should never touch the robot or software, but especailly during a tournament.
  • Always treat other teams and people with respect. It is not uncommon for volunteers and judges to be exploring the pits, and there is no gurantee they will be wearing a uniform. You never know who is watching.

The Beginning​

At the start of tournaments (usually saturday morning or friday night), the team delivers the robot, sets up pits, begins interfacing with other teams, and partakes in inspections.

  • The entire team should help bring in the robot and gear from the car.
  • Many teams opt to split up, the more technical teammates will get to work ensuring connectivity and calibrating sensors, and the less technical teammates will start setting up the pits and networking with other teams.
  • The adult coach, captain, and drive team (no one else) should go check into the tournament.
  • The drive team (no one else) should go to the robot inspection. Some tournaments allow other teammates, but do not allow more to go. There is very much such thing as "too many cooks in the kitchen".
  • If the drive team and (if permitted) the software team lead should go to the field (software) inspection.

The Main Tournament​

TODO: Connect page

  • Keep your pit well stocked, but bring as little as possible to actual matches. Do not bring power tools. Refer to our document on what to bring to a match
  • Always keep at least one competent teammate at the pit, availible to answer questions.
  • During matches, always perform to your absolute best. Even if the match is not going well you are still being watched by other teams who are scouting for their alliance partners.
  • Never sabatoge a teammate or opponent. Win fairly.

Alliance Selection​

  • While this is one of the rules of Alliance Selection, it is important to know that if you are not an alliance captain, if you are selected to be an alliance partner, if you decline, you will not be eligible to compete in any finals. That means you cannot hold yourself out for a different partner.
  • If your robot is not in working order, if you are selected, say no. It is a difficult decision to make, but if a team trusts you to deliver and you can't, you will often suffer a loss of awards and a damaged reputation. Read more about this idea under the Reasonable Expectation of Success.
  • If you are not selected, do not take it personally. Teams who know they will be alliance captains will be filling out detailed scouting sheets, gathering vast amounts of statistics on your performance and that of every other team. Understand that even if you are ranked high, that does not mean you will be selected.

The End​

  • It is dissapointing when you do not win awards. That is part of it. If you don't win, learn from your failures and bootstrap yourself for the next one.