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Alliance Selection Strategy
My team is in the fortunate position of possibly being a top 8 team at the Bayou regional, and we would like some tips on how to you guys make your lists for Alliance selection?
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Scouting, if you guys don't already have a scouting system set up I would just use OPR data to select teams. Also start researching how to make a good system for scouting for next year as it is one of the most important things your team can have. There should be plenty of threads on here with teams explaining how they do scouting. Our team records all offensive data of every robot then uploads it to MS excel and makes a ranked list of all the teams based on offensive performance. We also have 2 other "super-scouts" (I'm one of them) who record subjective data about robots that the statistical data doesn't tell us. Most of what the super-scouts record is information about robot's defensive capabilities, speed, and driving ability. The offensive data is most important for making your first pick and the subjective/defensive data is what we mostly use for making our second pick as we have usually seen that the best alliances are 2 offensive robots and 1 defensive robot. Hope that helps.
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1) Figure out what strategy will get you farthest in eliminations. 2) Compile a list of teams that have things you don't that will fit with the strategy (floor pickup, 30-point climb, full-court shot, etc.). You may need two or three lists, one for each feature. 3) Make sure you have a total of 24 teams at least; not all of them have to be in one category. 4) Consult your first pick as to preferred strategy/good second picks. But before picking... Talk to some of the potential partners and see what would happen. |
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Ideally, I would consider one offensive robot that plays the game differently from my robot and a good defensive robot...not an ok offensive robot that is put to play defense. One of the best parts of being a lower end picking seed is that you can basically get a decent offensive robot as your first pick and then choose the best defensive robot, but few low-end seeds actually do that. As far as scouting goes, we keep a pretty extensive database on each robot at a regional and rank them based on their own individual merits. We didn't come up with this method on our own, though...we've asked for/stolen ideas on how to scout from the best teams we've been partnered with. One of the best parts about FIRST is the idea of coopertition (even though it doesn't always play out that way when it's been worked into the actual game), so if anything else, go up to an older, more established team and ask them to share scouting data and tips on how they've scouted the teams at Bayou. I can tell you firsthand that 118's scouting system is very visual, simple to understand and very powerful and informative. |
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Thank you everybody for your replies.
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5. Visit the pit of as many robots as possible from your list, and find out what the health/status of the robot is.
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I would just like to note that if you are picking a robot for the sole purpose of offense OPR is the best system you have you don't already have a scouting system. The OPR ranking has a .9 correlation with our teams actual, quantitative offensive ranking of teams (how many points each team actually scores in a match) so when you say OPR isn't accurate at telling you which robots are good offensive bots you are wrong, it is 90% accurate. For your third alliance partner you need to completely ignore OPR and seeded ranking and just look at what robots fit your strategy best, that might be a defensive robot with nothing but a drive train, or it might be a robot that can feed you disks half-court from the feeder station (if you have a aground pick-up) or it might be a bot that can climb for 30 points and stay out of your way for the rest of the match.
TL;DR: a good scouting system is irreplaceable, however OPR does tell you, with 90% accuracy, which robots score the most points consistently (this may not mean they are the best pick though). |
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Of course, Wisconsin could also be an outlier in its own right as far as OPR correlation. I noticed off hand that the regional tended to be very balanced as far as quality scoring machines were concerned. There was not any clearly dominant scoring team like 987 or 2056 at the regional, instead there were 12 or so top teams that all scored between 40 and 60 points a match on average, then the average slowly dropped down until you had to get probably 24 teams in before teams were averaging less than 20 points a match. |
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OPR has been within 90% accurate at all of the last 5 events we attended (6 once nationals rolls around) so if you don't have a quantitative scouting system to track every team OPR is your best bet.
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Don't count out rookies, they can surprise you.
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The other thing that surprised me about the Boilermaker OPR is that there were a couple of cases that demonstrated accuracy. There were 2 single purpose robots in particular - one that hung for 30 points and one that hung for 10 points. OPR after Friday was 29 and 11 respectively. Anecdotal evidence I'm sure, but it seems that this year's game is easy to decompose (even easier than last year). OPR might be good at identifying top pick candidates, but nothing beats old fashioned scouting. My advice is to write down 5-10 attributes you think make a robot "good" for the game. This year, accuracy, distance, as well as how quickly can they hang, and floor pickup are good attributes. Attributes that are pretty universal between games describe robot drive trains, like speed and pushing power. The next step is to find 3 or 6 dedicated students to watch robots from the stands. These students need to focus on a single robot during each match, writing down as much detail as they possibly can. The last thing you might consider is writing down robot *features*. When I was watching matches this year, whenever I saw a battery move within a robot, I advised the scouters to note it. It's a hard lesson to learn, but it sunk my team and our alliance during eliminations in 2006 when our battery wasn't secured properly and knocked open our pneumatic release valve, and disabled the robot through the remainder of the match. There are other things like this that are easy to spot (bumpers dragging on the floor), that can potentially draw lots of fouls or a disabled robot. Hope this helps your scouting effort! |
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Collecting and compiling statistics on individual team contribution can be very helpful. This is the type of system that CORE uses for data collection and it is very labor intensive.
Scouting is a lot like building in that you need to consider the capability of your team in your planning. For smaller/newer teams I would suggest some kind of partnership with a larger and/or more established team. You can get some data from them and then work on your own strategy using their numbers. Otherwise, OPR or FRCminer are good sources of impartial data even if they are not 100% representative of the teams individual capabilities. I hope the OP had a good outcome at Bayou and I would encourage all teams to keep practicing and growing your scout-egy capabilities. If you wait until you are going to need the data you probably will not get up to speed in time. -mister g |
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The main point that I've been trying to get across is that a good scouting system is irreplaceable, but if you don't have one, OPR is much better than having nothing. I think we can all agree on that. |
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Our crude 1-sheet-of-paper-per-team scouting during the AZ regional worked fine, and we we were also able to get corroborating scouting data from a friendly team. |
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What exactly does OPR stand for and what is it?
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It's an estimate of how much each team scores per match, or rather their point contribution to their alliance (on average). The biggest problem with using solely OPR is that 1) it virtually ignores defensive players, and 2) it takes a bit of setup to run the numbers properly. (It also doesn't distinguish between how points are scored--if you're a 50-point climber and you pick a 50-point climber because they have a high OPR, you'll probably be blanked by the 50-point climber that picked a pair of shooter/defense robots that combined for 50 points.) |
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Ed Law does a good job posting the results after each week of competition.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=115380 This question has been asked many times, the search function is your friend :) http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=114980 There's an executable available by Bongle, I think the last updated version was last year, but it still works for strict OPR and predicting matches. http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=75272 EDIT: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...&postcount=280 |
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OPR does do what it's designed to do: tell you how much a team can expect to score. For alliance selection, though, I probably don't care how much my alliance can score. What I care about is how big of a point differential my alliance can produce in my favor, which is not the same thing by any means. If that means that my really, really accurate full-court shooter has to be protected by a pair of brave little toasters, then that's what I'm going to pick (though I'll probably pick rather specialized brave little toasters, just to increase that differential). If that means that my 50-point climber needs some shooters to back it up, that's what I'm going to pick. Is there a full-court shooter somewhere in my likely road? I'm going to look at teams that either have a blocker already or that can add one quickly. This sort of thing is what OPR cannot tell you, because it quite simply is not designed to do that. But it's this sort of thing that can make or break an alliance. |
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The OPR score also cannot show a trend in a team's scoring that will show up on a multi-line scoresheet that has been recorded for that team. A dragster is going much faster nearing the finish line than near the start line. No one bothers to calculate the average speeds at the NHRA events.
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For anyone interested in crunching numbers, there's an interesting discussion going on over here in re analysis of OPR's match results predictive efficacy. |
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Looks like the OP's team ended up as the 7th alliance captain and lost in 2 matches to the 2 seed and eventual finalists.
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I have one main concern with OPR. I only had time to briefly look over how it is calculated, but what I saw troubled me. One teams OPR is influenced by their alliance partners. This influence may not be very big, but it can add up. If a team goes to an event where the teams are generally "good", then their OPR will be higher. The opposite happens when the teams are generally bad. Most OPR stats are seperated by less than one point. As a result, one match with bad partners could screw everything up.
That is just my two cents. If I am wrong, or if I misunderstood something, please let me know. |
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Because I never said that, from what he posted it sounded like they didn't have a scouting system, in which case I stand by my original statement, Quote:
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EDIT: also Ether is correct, if a robot is playing phenomenal counter-defense it will boost their OPR. |
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Even without a scouting system providing hard numbers of a robots capabilities, a lot of useful soft information can be gleaned by talking to teams in their pits as well as talking to spectators. |
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Your regional may vary. |
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If a team competes in two regionals (or two districts) the trending OPR could be calculated as follows: 1) first 2/3 of first regional 2) last 2/3 of first regional 3) last 1/3 of first regional and first 1/3 of second regional 4) first 2/3 of second regional 5) last 2/3 of second regional ... and so on, if a third regional is involved. |
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My team does pit scouting, collect data of every robot of every match and combine that with OPR/CCWM to come up with a pick list. I don't advocate using only OPR. There are two circumstances I can think of that it is useful. When we were a rookie team, we had 6 students on the team, 4 of them were on the field or in the queue line most of the time, leaving only 2 students in the stand. In between matches, they were fixing and getting the robot ready for the next match. That year we used strictly OPR for first pick and CCWM for second pick. It was better than nothing. The other way I would use OPR is if I was not at the competition so other means of scouting is not possible. The data tells me a lot about the teams. This data is very useful at the Championship when you have not seen how the other 99 robots in your division play, especially in the early matches. The last time I check, the winner of the alliance is the one who can score more points. Offense is definitely important. However another way to look at it is if my alliance plays in such a way that we can create a positive point differential, my alliance will win. Three defensive teams, no matter how good they are at it, will never win a match. The best they can do is to tie it. You need at least one robot on the alliance that has sufficient offensive power to win. Oh I almost forgot to answer this new posters question. You are absolutely wrong. Let me give you a simple example. I see you are also from Michigan. Let's say the district event has 40 teams. Let's say all teams except yours score exactly 20 points per match and your robot score 10 points. The calculated OPR is 20 for every other team and 10 for your team. Let's say you go to your second district and every robot there can score 40 points per match and your robot score 10 points per match. The OPR will be exactly 40 for all other teams and your team's OPR is still 10. So you are wrong to think that your OPR will be higher because you play in higher scoring matches. If you don't contribute to the higher score, you get nothing higher in your OPR. |
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You are in some respects correct, with some caveats and corrections. Yes, OPRs are based on calculations that involve the full alliance's score. However, "add up" is not the correct turn of phrase for potential inaccuracy--the more you play, specifically the more different alliances you (and your allies) play with, the less a role they should play in determining your OPR. As a simple example: 1114 + 000 + 999 = 150 ...this could mean that 1114 did nothing, and 000 scored 150 points alone 000 + 9999 + 8888 = 10 ...this makes it less likely that that happened 1114 + 7777 + 8888 = 180 ...again, it's getting clearer that 1114 has something going on here... Imagine this continuing for another half dozen matches, and you'll see how more data tends to yield more accurate rather than less accurate results. OPRs are also not as close as you think they are. For instance, at my last event, the standard deviation was 17.5, with a range of 69. Of 33 teams, the largest set within a 1pt range was 3 (13.7, 13.1, 13.0). Even at 60-some team events, the largest I found was 6. While they are somewhat sensitive, particularly at regionals with fewer qual matches, the amount that they'd change would probably be lower than the rating's useful precision anyway. And again, if your partners in that match are normally that bad in their matches, it certainly won't screw everything up for you. EDIT: Or, you know, what Ed said. That too. (Except ever since EDIT: after 2011, 3 defensive robots can win matches.) |
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Siri,
When I say defensive robots, I don't mean they can score all their autonomous points and then play defense and then get the end game points. I meant pure defensive robots that do not score. You cannot win a match that way. The type of robot that score well in autonomous and end games and play good defense in the middle will usually have a decent OPR. However their CCWM will be high because they will contribute to a big point differential. That is why I use CCWM to prescreen 2nd round pick and I never pick a team in the second round with negative CCWM. We do not use strictly OPR or CCWM to pick teams. |
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Ed,
first of all, thanks for posting the OPR data week after week, year after year. More than anything, I find it useful to see how robots have done AFTER tournaments.....especially if our team is competing the same weekend (not being able to watch other webcasts). Nothing beats the good 'ole fashion way of scouting by watching robots in matches. In recent years, we have either been the #1 seed or picked by the #1 seed most of the time which has kept us busy on friday evenings after event socials. We always look for robots that either best complement our strategy OR robots that we dont want to face in eliminations the most. In this year's game, if we went to a regional where we were the best shooter far and above the second best shooting robot, I would NOT consider finding the second best shooter at the tournament......but instead, look if there is a 50 point climb/dumper robot (even if that is all they do!). With that kind of combination, it would be hard pressed for any opposing alliance to overcome.....assuming autonomous points are equal and full court shooters can be blocked. I beg to differ that 30 point climbing even if it takes 1 minute, doesnt make a difference. At many regionals this year, selecting a 30 point climber CAN make a difference. Or, it can be a pain to try and overcome if climbers are on the opposing alliance. |
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Okay, thanks for clearing that up. It helps a lot.
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I expect there to be a good number (maybe 10 or more?) of robots at the championship event that will find themselves in the top 8 in each division, even though they'll be middle of the pack in OPR. Their strategy should be to pick the two best offensive robots they can, so that the alliance captain in effect becomes the 3rd bot for defense. OPR in this case would be a good tool for them to help rank teams. Also, depending on the team's strengths, an alliance of 3 offensive capable bots could be more effective than an alliance of 2 offensive capable bots and 1 defensive only bot. If this is a team's strategy, OPR is a good tool to help rank teams (or at least identify 20-30 teams to focus on in scouting instead of 90+). |
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Both you and I are not top 10 material because we dont have a 7 disc auto mode (i.e. 2056, 1886, 987, etc.). However, like Boilermaker, if you put the 2 of us together against 1 of the elites with 2 defensive robots, we both know either alliances can still win. It was such a beauty everytime we paired up. On a side note, we have defensive/offensive center discs for auto mode. We wont ever use it unless the time calls for it. |
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