[FRC Blog] FIRST Robotics Competition Registration Update
 

Posted on the FRC Blog, 9/30/16: http://www.firstinspires.org/robotic...tration-update

Re: [FRC Blog] FIRST Robotics Competition Registration Update
 

Hallry's back! Tell a Friend!

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I like that they are splitting district and regional registration.

I also like that they are finally moving to a preference based system in 2018.

Maybe we can get rid of bags in 2018 too. ;)

Re: [FRC Blog] FIRST Robotics Competition Registration Update
 

Dang, I hate to pull out the GP card, but really? It's frustrating not getting into a preferred event, but that doesn't excuse trying to cheat the system. Wait in line like the rest of us do.

Re: [FRC Blog] FIRST Robotics Competition Registration Update
 

I'm not in favor of those (if any) who would use a bot but part of that blame lies upon the current system that is in place of first come/first serve .

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Guess who's back....back again....

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Meh, I don't blame the system. Blame the person trying to get around it. "Don't hate the player, hate the game" is just an excuse for being a ***** person.

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Did you get your quote backwards? I'm having trouble interpreting this otherwise.

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I also am not the biggest fan of the registration system as it is, but I'm not sure what other options there are. Would staggering event registration times based on competition week work better? Or maybe giving priority to local teams?

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That particular system would give teams with no "local" regional a disadvantage, like teams where North Star and 10k Lakes in Minnesota are the closest regionals but still a few hours away, and there are more than enough closer teams to fill the slots.

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They aren't getting around the system though. They are working within it; ultimate efficiency under the rules doesn't equate to illegality.

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You can designate a "home event" for everyone though.

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I would expect the TOS for TIMS to prohibit using scripts or similar to access the site, which would make it illegal. Now Frank has posted it publicly, which, for all intents and purposes, makes it illegal.

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Without knowing if it was/is in the TOS, then yeah Frank just made it illegal.

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Ahh, yes, the it's not breaking the rules unless there's a rule about it, crap.

two thoughts:
1. this is why we can't have nice things
2. Commonsense isn't all that common, is it?

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My team may have a slight objection to that idea!

Anyway, silliness aside, there are always going to be compromises that will have to be made by one team or another with any bag day/registration process solution. If there was one perfect answer, we would have long since agreed and moved on!

I don't actually know where my team stands on either of the bag day or registration process issues.

Agree. Can't knock a team for working smarter instead of harder. Maybe they didn't design it too well if they were effectively DOSing the server.

The only thing I'm upset about is not having the foresight to make a bot for registration!

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I mean, I've been a big fan of first come first serve because we get to pick based on priorities we set instead of whatever priorities FIRST would hypothetically give us to pick from. If I'm trying to avoid seeing Triple Helix at an event, I doubt FIRST will take that in to account when assigning us events. :)

I get the shift, but I'll miss it. This is why we can't have nice things.

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Unfortunately, FIRST isn't the only system burned by bots... just look at concert/sporting ticket sales! A report here in MN earlier this summer said that, of 10 recent concerts in the cities, over 20% of tickets were put up for resale within hours of the tickets first becoming available.

While first is changing the system (which is something I do support) next year, there really is nothing inherently wrong with a first come, first served system, and even with such a system it's relatively easy to stop bots - captcha, as Frank mentioned, would basically put an end to it for FIRST registration, and they can set up a system to lockout teams that are found to be using a bot by running statistics on page requests.

If this issue really lies with the system, then the system can be fixed without replacing it. Replacing it with a new system isn't because a few teams are using bots... it's because a new system can better serve the community with fair and easy access to registering for their events.

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That's easily solvable by determining which event is a team's "local" regional ahead of time. The simplest way would be to determine which event is closest to each team and call that local. If, at that point, you have more teams than spots for that event, spots could be assigned randomly for every team that hadn't opted to try for a different event instead. The unlucky teams would then have to go to their second choice.

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Doh. I did. :(

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So say I have a fast finger on the refresh key and a fast human mouse click. Are they going to mistake me for a bot and block my registration?

Are there teams already on this secretive "no fly" list, and us there any due-process to get off of it?

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Can you press F5 and click your mouse hundreds of times per second?

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Back before we became a district, our team liked to travel to our events. Being forced into a local event is not something I would have looked forward too. We enjoyed playing in Trenton, Philadelphia, Rochester, Manchester, Worcester instead of always going to Hartford.

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that hadn't opted to try for a different event instead. Teams should always have a choice.

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In this scenario can I pick my home event? Cause I may not want to attend the one geographically closest to me.

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I think the intent is that teams that choose the event that is geographically closest to them have a preference or advantage over teams that decide they want to travel. After all, should a team from California that lives 5 minutes from an event not get into that event because a team from Florida wants to visit the west coast? Providing a benefit to those teams that choose the closest event to themselves helps to keep costs down across FIRST, especially when you consider that there are team's all over that don't have the funding to pay for buses and hotels.

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Sure, but I think it would still have to be geographically near. Like if 179 would rather have Orlando over South Florida; but not 179 would rather have Peachtree over South Florida.(RIP Peachtree Regional)

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That is only contingent on that California event being the 1st choice for both teams.

If the Cali team wants it as their #2 but the Florida has it as #1, Florida wins.
If the Cali team wants it as their #2 and so does the Florida team, first come/first serve.
If the Cali team has it as #1 and Florida has it as #1, Cali wins by "home event".
If the Cali team has it #1 and Florida has it as #2, see above.

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The California should still get priority, especially if they can't get into their first choice event.

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So you want Regionals to be region locked like districts?

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My point is: what if their first choice event is full before they get in? Should a team from across the country be able to bump them out of their second choice event as well?

Only until teams from those regions are able to get into a local regional.

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If a team has #1 listed and its open they should get it filled. If an event has 61 applicants and 60 spots, the 60 closest should get to go. #2s shouldnt even be considered till all #1s are taken care of.

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I don't think anyone is proposing to get rid of the reserve capacity for regionals. Giving the RDs some flexibility and discretion regarding who gets into their event helps ensure that late registering, low budget, and/or local teams are able to find events they can play at.

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The scenario I'm trying to avoid is:

Team A is 50 miles from Regional A and the next closest Regional is 300+ miles away and poses significant issues for Team A to travel to. Team B is 500 miles from Regional B, but really wants to attend. Team B "wins" the lottery, registers for Regional A and prevents Team A from attending Regional A and likely from participating in the FRC program at all.

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We moved to this system in PNW District last year. In the first round of signups a team could wither "opt out" of their local event or register for their local "home" event. Opt out would mean that you wait until the 2nd round and you get 2 choices when it opens up. (Again this is District only)

Due to the wonky way home events were chosen (by FIRST), the event we were listed as "home" for us was actually further away from us than the one we wanted to compete at. We opted out and then signed up for the closer event the 2nd registration. (FIRST chose home events based on zip codes or something and not by actual distance.... they would not change it when we requested it before registration)

It worked out for us... it simply gives a team the best chance at the district event that is closest to them. They don't have to take it. In this way, a team is never frozen out of the local district event.

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I think determining advantage from a team's preference order is more difficult than that. For example, I know plenty of teams here in the Twin Cities that could put down North Star and 10,000 Lakes as their first two choices, and not have the funding to travel anywhere else. Lets say that a bunch of teams put those two down in the same order, so that one of them fills up first. Should the team's that didn't make it into that one get locked out of the other because a bunch of teams from Texas had it as their first choice?

This is by no means an easy system to create.

Perhaps the best way would be to assign each team to a "home regional" before registration starts, and then have "first event registration" really be a request for changing, rather than an open sign up. So If my team is in Florida and gets assigned to a local regional, but I'd rather go out to California, I can put in a request to change, and if there's room in the event (either open capacity, or capacity created by other teams changing events) then the registration switches. If room doesn't open up, then my team stays in the local event. This could be extended to include multiple change requests (I want regional A, but if I can't get that, then I want regional B, if I can't get either then C, and finally stay where I am).

Such a system would be aimed at keeping costs low for every team, while providing the opportunity for personal preference as well. But cost comes before preference.

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There's plenty inherently wrong with a first come, first served system, even outside the bot issue! Having the free time and connectivity is a privilege not every team enjoys. It's no more fair to reward those teams that can click first at 12 Eastern time, than it would be to sell event slots at auction.

Thankfully FIRST appears to be moving to the only fair system I can think of: random assignments starting from a priority list. Something like how it is done for FIRST Choice by AndyMark and FTC leagues.

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As a mentor for a team in the Los Angeles area, it is frustrating trying to register for my "home" regional that fills up in seconds. Especially when you see after that teams from out of state with low-fill-rate regionals registered there as a first event.

Just a gripe. I've never failed to get into my first choice event.

As for the bots thing, the registration process is written with the intent of a lead contact doing the work, not a program.

Read the instructions.

Says "Make sure you refresh your page at Noon Eastern on Thursday, September 22, 2016 in order for the Events to become available to your Team!"

Not "program a bot to do these steps for you hundreds of times per second."

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Whatever way we would end up doing this, it seems that we all agree that it will be extremely complicated.

I personally think that the 1st round-opt out of home event/2nd round-register elsewhere system sounds the best.

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Not to break up the discussion, but I kindof love that "cycling the power" may have fixed this whole thing. :)

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I saw that too and immediately thought of:

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Good excuse to bust out my database expert emoticon:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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We've also found the way things work to be curious from time to time. For example, before the home event system we asked if we could be guaranteed entry to the event that we host. The answer was not "no", it was "no because our IT department wouldn't be able to do that". That's a stupid response because they could always just adjust the number of spots held back with no special coding involved. A flat "no" would at least be honest.

Another curious thing is that the Alaskan team's home event is Wilsonville. While we'd love to see them in Wilsonville, it's about as far away from them as you can get without leaving the district. And I've heard a rumor that they've already made arrangements to stay in Seattle for a couple of weeks to compete, so if they choose to opt out it should not be a surprise to anyone.

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Something interesting to note, 3 teams have somehow been signed up for events already.

https://www.thebluealliance.com/team/6319
https://www.thebluealliance.com/team/6320
https://www.thebluealliance.com/team/6321

I assume these are just for testing, but if you look on the firstinspires team list, a few rookie team numbers have been handed out as well.

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Those must be the teams with bots! :ahh:

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Interestingly, there's a few more that aren't rookies:

Week 1:
http://www.thebluealliance.com/team/4075/2017 - Palmetto
http://www.thebluealliance.com/team/558/2017 - NE District - Waterbury
http://www.thebluealliance.com/team/2363/2017 - CHS District - Northern Virginia

Week 2:
http://www.thebluealliance.com/team/648/2017 - St. Louis Regional
http://www.thebluealliance.com/team/1288/2017 - St. Louis Regional

Week 3:
http://www.thebluealliance.com/team/1743/2017 - Greater Pittsburgh Regional
http://www.thebluealliance.com/team/3492/2017 - Greater Pittsburgh Regional

>a few rookie team numbers have been handed out

I'm intrigued by the 4 rookies in the same town in Guam.

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If you go to the actual event pages on the FIRST website, you'll see nobody is registered for these events anymore.

My understanding is that there was a brief glitch where registration was open at the end of last week, a few curious people poked around the system, and FIRST re-closed registration and deleted all of their signups.

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Great job once again GuamFIRST!

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~I already signed up for Crowd Control~

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You mean like 233 did in 2015


There is more to it then just being geographically close, for example Florida has two regionals this year Week 1 and Week 2, unfortunately as of this moment we may not be able to attend either due to scheduling conflicts with our school(s), so creating a home event system would mean we would either
A) Be forced to sign up for an event and have no students at it till midday Friday
or
B) Have to hope that in a weighted lottery system we get lucky.

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In such a system, I would hope you would be able to chose a "replacement" regional for your first choice before anyone else gets to choose a second regional. I would hope that leaves enough room open for teams in such a situation to pick a different regional. It may not be the second or third closest regional, though, depending on team density in your area.

Even with these issues, I still think a system that focuses on minimizing travel for all teams would come up with the "least objectionable" first event picks overall, allowing those with issues to then address them within the remaining capacity.

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Just like now, I would not be surprised if several slots from each event were 'held back' to handle unexpected or unfair situations, where the event organizers then can manually rectify things.

FIRST Choice uses a system that might be scalable to registration.

No matter what, the answer isn't simple. If WE can't come up with a fair system, nobody can. There will be randomness....