"Random" match Schedules
 

What is going on with the "random" scheduling at the regionals? I'm here watching VCU, and the same teams are playing over and over and over...
116 vs 122, all 6 matches so far.
401 vs 405, all 6 matches so far.
343 vs 339, all 6 matches so far.

In NJ,
25 vs 11, 3 of 6 matches.
25 vs 41, 3 of 6 matches.

In PNW,
114 vs 192, all 4 matches so far.
488 vs 492, all 4 matches so far.

I think you get my point. If you dig further, you'll find that the "random" software picked groups of adjacent team numbers, and just cycled them in the same pairings. This is NOT good for the competitions, as it just makes the strong strong, and the weak weak.

Could someone from the GDC PLEASE tell me that this will be changed for the following weeks of competitions? I feel very sorry for the teams competing this weekend...

BEN

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Wow, that's even worse than past years. And I thought our IRI schedule was stacked in previous seasons. Can't wait for this year.....:rolleyes:

My kingdom for a randomizing algorithm!

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

From the St. Louis thread:

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

This was a issue at the Winter WarZone scrimmage in Suffield, Ct 2 weeks ago.

I guess the software people did not think it was a problem! I know they were told it would be.

Another year with scoring system problems...who figures!!

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Yeah. I was wondering this myself. Because all of our matches today we went against team 716.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Yeah. Watching the webcast of VCU (we don't compete until week 3 *tear*) I kept noticing pairings of teams competing againsty each other.

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This is not a pretty situation. From my initial analysis, the algorithm seems to be grouping teams based on their team number, and cycling through these groups. As a result pairs of teams are seeing each other repeatedly. This is not fun for a team who has to play the same powerhouse repeatedly. Also, it gets very stale, very quickly. Hopefully the software is modular enough to handle a new algorithm, that can be implemented for the rest of the season.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

This was definitely pointed out at the Winter Warzone scrimmage, and I was led to believe that it would be addressed before the regionals.

Our experience was to play all 3 rounds with the same 5 other robots. Robots that could only play defense so the scores were 0-0, 2-0, 0-0, no working ramps to try out between the six bots. This was Not the varied cross section you want when tuning up your robot at a scrimmage. And this could not lead to a fair shake for a good robot that ends up opposite the same power robots round after round.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

At BAE, team 238 will play team 1153 8 times. Teams receive 8 matches.

At first, I thought our situation was bad (we played Buzz 3 times). I later found out that there are several instances of teams playing other teams (4+ times). We play either 1277 or 1247 in every single qualifier.

I never thought I would say this, but I want Hatch's schedule algorithm back (and theres wasn't particularly good). :(

On a positive note, the new field control can stay, although a timer would be more useful than a bar on the big screen.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

PantherTech (292) is playing ThunderChickens (217) 5 times over the course of this weekend. Not to say that we don't like playing you guys, but we'd just rather have you on the same side of the field. Yep, I don't think this algorithm is up to pair and needs to be fixed. Hopefully people are playing attention and something can be quickly worked out.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Yeah. We are against 151 for 4 matches. Against 172 for 3 (which was quite scary considering their great ramp!)

There were many instances when we were with someone of match, and against them the next.

I wasn't exactly happy.

At least we aren't up against 126 or 175 ever... right?

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Also, it's peculiar that all of our round numbers are the same:
9,19,29,39,49,59,69,79

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Today we played 172 and 190 4 times
We were never with or against Gael Force


These alliances aren't very random

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Please Please Please. I am not trying to bash any team. My apologies go out in advance if anything I say can be taken in any negative way towards any team. The teams have absolutely nothing to do with the schedule and if asked they would all probably wish it were different. I followed the VCU regional today and after reading other posts in this thread I wondered if anything like that happened at VCU. I looked at the team in first place, I am not naming the team here because I am not trying to draw attention to them, just trying to point out that something is wrong with the algorithm that is being used. I know, I know, now everyone who reads this can go figure out who I am talking about. You have to be able to demonstrate proof of what you are saying and the only way to do that is to provide the information. They were against another team six of the seven matches they played That team is in 60th place. My guess is that both of thse teams would have much rather faced a variety of opponents instead of eachother quite so many times. Again, my apologies go out to each of these teams. In the four years I have been envoled with first I can not ever remember a time when the team I mentor would be with or against maybe a couple of the same teams for an entire regional.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Because of this scheduling, we will not have had the opportunity to play with or against 34 of the 58 other teams at the regional...

I believe this match system is going to make for some very interesting elimination rounds.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

These results are no different then the findings I had from Waterloo last year, mind you Waterloo is a very small regional, making it harder to mix up teams while still giving them a good enough break in between matches (was the reason given when I approached the issue). After approaching FIRST about this at a debriefing, I had the chance to see the code they used for Waterloo, it was in fact very well written. There was however a problem, this was that this program didn't "reset" the algorithm after breaks such as the end of day or lunches causing teams to almost stay in a loop of teams they play with every match introducing one team into those they last played with as it ranked having a longer break for the team more important then who they were playing against. I changed this in that code adding a set number of resets, and saw a far more "random" selection between the days, and even better adding 2 more breaks. These two extra breaks are very accomplishable, if FIRST was to say add two 10 min breaks in the day one before and one after lunch, these breaks would also be logical as to allow the volunteers a much needed short break, allow any syncing problems with scoring to be worked out, and a multitude of other practical reasons. I relayed back my solution to the one that made the software, hoping these minor changes could be made.

It could very well be that this "looping" effect where you see teams play with or against others many times, is simply because they don't have resets for the algorithm, or it could be because the algorithm was poorly designed, either way it is a problem FIRST knows about and I find it unfortunate for those teams who have been effected that they haven't solved it yet.

edit: mind you there never was a problem with teams playing against a team all the time... say if they were stuck in the "loop" with said team, a few would be with a few against

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Team 2021 plays against team 2028 in all of our matches I believe.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Quote from artdutra:

It is not really completely random. You are more likely to play with the same people that you were competing with and against rather than someone else that is minutes out of your range due to the algorithm FIRST has in place.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

this is absolutely true of the scheduling. the so called randomizing is making the strong stronger and keeping the weak at that same level of performance. This is not helping gathering any significant data during scouting eith:ahh: er. What are they going to do about this???

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Well, it certainly makes scouting a little bit easier for every match. :p

401 plays against 405 EVERY SINGLE ROUND!!!! Strangely enough, I'm not really noticing this when I drive though. Then again, we're playing mostly defense right now.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Every team in the pits is paired against the team directly next to them (not across the isle).

It is very ironic, because when 401 first got there, we helped repair what turned out to be our perpetual opponent.

I am glad that we could help out their team, but would appreciate more variation in the matching.

A little birdie from the higher ups told me they are working to fix it for the other regionals.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Same problem at the Pacific Northwest regional. 948 vs 949 in every match. 272 vs 360 in every match. And several others whose numbers I've forgotten.

Several of the teams reported the problem to the staff as soon as the pairings were distributed. They said they were looking into it and might be redoing the pairings. We checked back a bit later, and they said that the official word from FIRST was that nothing could be changed.

We are very disappointed, even though this mess-up gave our team an advantage.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Today at BAE, team 549 played team 562 all 7 matches of the day. Also, we played with a team, and then would play against them the next match, then pair with them later again.

Also, this terrible pairing system left teams wondering the capabilities of our robot, because they never got to even TRY and play. We practiced yesterday with many of the teams we played with today...

It was no fun to play with/against the same teams all day.Strategy turned to mush, because we were with and against the same teams all day. :(

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

From Richard's post in this thread, it seems that FIRST has spec'd out an algorithm that places similarly numbered teams in matches together. I suppose it could be an attempt to even the playing field for rookies. Sorry to spread around your post Richard, but this is an interesting and, I think, rather unfortunate change in direction.

We'll be against 291 for two entire regionals...:(




EDIT: Well, I think Richard's information is correct, based on the ten's of posts on here, from every regional, saying that they're paired up with the same people throughout. The question is, is there anything good about it, and if not, should we do anything to change it? Can we even change it?

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

We've played Team 1089 all 5 matches today and we also have the problem with playin in match 9, 19, 29, etc.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

One more fun fact. At BAE we have 2 teams which need to play another round to get to 8 rounds per team. As such, 4 (or at least 3) extra rounds have been scheduled, giving 22 (or 16) teams an extra round of practice.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Yea, we have noticed this in the past 2 days. Team have been playing either with against each other for 2 or more matches. I feel it just doesnt show how you will compete with others. It's still a lot of fun though. :yikes:

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

I don't mind you spreading it around.

I'd like to repeat here that the new field management system worked flawlessly in St. Louis today. Credit for that should go to FIRST engineering staff and the new contractors for great attention to the details, to Mark Koors of FRC45 (technical advisor) and Jerry Budd of FRC461 (scoring lead), and to several members of the local St. Louis volunteer corps for tirelessly testing and retesting the system on Wednesday and Thursday, before the fun started this morning. This system is a major improvement over last year.

As I said earlier, I will add my concurrence to the communication being prepared for FIRST regarding the match generation algorithm; however, to me it seems clear that this is a policy issue and not a defect in the field management system. Let's keep the discussion on this topic focussed on what can/should be done to improve match generation.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

I-- can't believe this is how they WANTED the match schedule to be!

What!?

Oh boy...

I hope this just gets redone, rather than rationalized into a "good thing."

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

I see this as a good and a bad thing. Although I do not like the fact that you are against the same people over and over, I bet FIRST or someone can create an algorithm that can at least make the first half of the teams compete with only first half teams and second half teams only second half with a few inter lapped but I think that Rookies vs Rookies rather than Veterans vs Rookies is a great idea because Vets, no matter if they are rookies on the team, have a higher chance of winning because the team has had the experience compared to the Rookie teams.

I'm not 100% for it, but im not 100% against it either. I guess its a step in the right direction....Maybe a diagonal step, but forward nonetheless.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

How to improve it? A few thoughts:

-Make sure the cycles are flipped around after each period of play (Friday AM, Friday PM, Saturday AM). Being the last match before lunch and the first one after is a little tight, but the Friday-Saturday interlude is the perfect time to shuffle the deck.
-d.courtney's notion of a ten-minute break (a little under two match cycles) may also aid in shuffling things nicely, if doing it at the existing breaks doesn't cut it.
-If you absolutely must stick the same two teams in a second match, make sure they don't end up on the same side again.
-Above all else, remain fully aware that a low number (or lack thereof) is by no means a sure measure of a great robot.

Your mileage, of course, may vary.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

The fact that some teams are always against each other worries me. Forget the fact that its the same general group of teams playing each round, but the fact that 190 has played 4 matches AGAINST 175 and NONE with them is a problem. It shouldn't be that hard to make a way to manually swap two of the teams in a match to make that happen.

I also agree that there is an issue with the grouping effect. In years past it has happened to some degree (an effect of the attempt to space matches evenly), but never to this extreme. I have no problem with teams not getting to play in a match with 2 or 3 of the teams, but more than 10 is a little obscene. I have heard good news that FIRST has gotten the message and that they will fix it for the next regionals.

On that note, week 1 regionals have always been the proving grounds for the game and all the associated software. I'm glad that this is the only issue i've seen so far

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Ok, I did a random selection of teams from different regionals, and just checked how often they played against a particular team. Results may not be complete, but they give a pretty good spread.

St. Louis:

148- 4/7 matches against 45, 3/7 against 217

829- 4/7 matches against 547

1502- 7/7 matches against 1472

2177- 4/7 against 2167, 3/7 against 2219


VCU:

116- 7/7 matches against 122

401- 6/6 matches against 405

900- 3/6 matches against 843

2028- 6/6 matches against 2021


You could go into far greater detail, analyzing alliance partners, ratio of matches with vs. against , whatever, but there really isn't much point. The scoring algorithm, as has been stated, is grouping particular team number together, and is doing so consistently. There wasn't a team I found that wasn't playing with the same team (for or against), at least half the time. To be honest, and nothing bad directed or intended, but it kinda explains why there are so may rookies in the top 8 this year.

St. Louis:

#4- 2177

VCU:

#7- 2068
#8- 2028

PNR:

#1- 2122

NJ:

#5- 2180


There are always really good rookies, but there seems to be a disproportionate amount this year, IMHO. I can't say I'm right here though.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

We were with or against 663 at BAE for every match today... and seemed to play with the same group of team the whole day. I call not so random...

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

One way to argue this is as follows: seeding is meaningless, scouting should determine your alliance selection for eliminations. So the purpose of qualifying matches is not to generate seedings that accurately reflect team strength (major league baseball uses 162 games to do that, and still creates lopsided playoff match-ups); qualifying matches give scouts information about what each team can do, and for that purpose the match-ups are not a significant factor.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Are you on 118? :D

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

I'd love to look at it this way, but unfortunately, it doesn't really work out well. If you are constantly playing a powerhouse team, your strategy, in order to try and win, must adapt into, likely, a defensive stance, even though you may be an amazing offensive robot.

Teams scout, but match standing can lend alot of weight to whether or not a team gets picked. Unfortunate, but real. That may be FIRST's argument though, you are right Richard.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Add to your VCU list that 435 played against 510 every round. I could probably double your list of reasons that the current matching system is a bad idea, but if FIRST is already planning a change then I won't bother.

Can anyone confirm that FIRST is changing this for the next round of regionals and for nationals?

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Nobody has posted a similiar situation to the one on my team (2108 in VCU); we face off against 2186 every match, but also, our ally in one match is one of our competitors in the next.

For instance: Match number #11, our allies were 617 and 1413 (I believe). Match #21, we went up against 1413.

It's a cascading cycle where we basically only see three new robots on the field at any given match: 2 new allies, and 2 familiar on the opposition.

Has anybody else seen or have had this happen with other teams?

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Richard,

For once I have to disagree with you. Yes, scouting should determine your alliance section, but seeding is not meaningless. The reason qualifying matches need to reflect team strength is to ensure that the teams who earn the right to select, are deserving to do so. No one wants to see a below average team seed #1, by virtue of constantly playing even weaker teams, or being paired with excellent teams. This unfairly rewards them, and punishes the team they select. (Provided that this below average team scouts well, and picks a top team)

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

yes, i agree that of course the seeding doesnt reflect the actual rank of the robots acurately and scouting should determine who goes in the alliances, but the ranking does determine who gets to choose the alliances. Because there are some teams out there, i will not name any specifically but we all know about them, who just build a boxbot and run around doing alot of nothing, they will have a team that always plays them and always wins because they are basically playing 3 v 2. even if the robot isn't that great, it wins every match and gets placed up top where it is made to choose an alliance. this robot might not be one of the best 24 teams and might not be worthy of its spot.

One other thing relating the perpetual opponents to alliance captains is, it is impossible for both teams to be alliance captains. Your record is the inverse of your perpetual opponents record. you cannot possibly both be alliance partners, which is unfair to two really great and worthy teams who just so happen to be numerically close.

my team, we play every match against the same team. the bad thing is that the one downside of our robot is its traction. we have omniwheels and they arent gripping well. all of our opponents mechanisms arent functional so they have to focus on defense. we keep getting alliance partners that cant tube like we can so our opponent just slams us every time we pick up a tube. by the 5th match however, they received a yellow card (if not the first at the regional then definitely the second) for excessive violence. now we play an unagressive/paranoid partner for the rest of the matches which is too much in our advantage in my opinion.

while i see what FIRST is trying to do, i really think that a purely random schedule would be the best, getting paired with whoever you get paired with, assuring the variety you expect.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

I don't mind if you disagree with me, Karthik. I'm not certain that I agree with me on this reasoning, either.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

I'll have to agree with Karthik. The seeding is very important for ranking atleast the top 8 teams. A veteran #2 seed that has played and beaten all the other veteran teams at the regional with a rookie #1 seed that has barely beaten all the other rookies at the regional... That's just asking for trouble.

In addition, I can't see how a rookie team would prefer to be paired with and against other rookies for an entire regional. Many of these rookies were planning on being enabling robots to leverage the ramps and other features of veteran teams. Basically telling them that they'll never be paired with a veteran team just because is not a nice thing to do.

Mostly, I'm just surprised because the only serious complaints I've ever heard about the alliance pairing algorithms were that teams had to play with or against another team for half a regional or so. I can't really understand why first would turn around and go with a system like this in the face of that feedback.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

All this discussion about Richards idea that this type of seeding rounds was a new approach by FIRST to level the playing, or that this was planned by FIRST, is simply wrong. When this happened at the scrimmage in Suffield, CT 2 weeks ago, it was discussed with 3 high level people from FIRST.They all agreed that what happen that day, and whats happening this weekend, would be corrected by the 1st week events. With all the other fixes that came out of the scrimmage, I guess they ran out of time.

By continuing this line of discussion you are giving FIRST, and the software people an excuse for not fixing something that needs fixing.

Has anyone else notice that Mr Lavery his not added his voice to this discussion. Last year he was all over Hatch for every little issue.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

I don’t think they should even try to fix it. Why should the first week teams have to be the guinea pigs? Why should teams attending only the first week events end up having a less rewarding experience than ones who picked week four or five? This is an issue that could have been resolved way before the first event. I’m reminded of last year’s first week debacle with the scoring system and automatic scoring hardware. Not much changed in five weeks. Milwaukee probably had as many or more re-starts than VCU. They were still human counting in Las Vegas. It was not until the Championship that they programmed a break after autonomous - so they could at least get the autonomous winner right! Not much changed, except that we learned to live with it and made the best of it.

But last year had a really great game to make up for the warts. IMO, this year’s game is not as good, not even close. Whether the total experience is enough to make up for [insert pet peeve(s) here] remains to bee seen.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

The biggest problem I see with the perpetual opponent is simply the issue of an actually enemy appearing. In previous years there have been slight rivalries etc but by having a team that you play over and over ruins the atmosphere that we, or at least I love about FIRST regionals, a team could be your enemy one round then your ally the next. Without that I think teams can begin to get bitter towards each other, and whatever team ends up playing the number one team every match ends up being last just because of that it really adds too much negative competition into the game.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

I personally think instead of having a 'if i cant have it nobody can' attitude one should have a 'well, at least everyone else will have fun' attitude. The people in the first week got the short straw, yes. but this cannot be changed; it already happened. i would hope that first will learn from its mistake immediately and try and make it so everyone else has the best experiance they can.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

You sir, are putting attitudes in my mouth.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

This is something that I think should really change. I don't want to sound like I'm whining, but this happened to team 494 at Milwaukee last season when we had to play 111 in several of our matches (6-7 in qualifying), it was not that we don't love playing against WildStang, more we just hate losing to them every round. Really my point is that it is fun to play against/with great teams every once in a while, but I would much rather play with several different teams so we can rekindle friendships and create new ones.

It scares me at Great Lakes, because I know we will be put against 469 and 503 in every single match we play. This would probably lead to me quiting FIRST and hiding in a hole to cry the pain of losing all these matches away. And yes I'm being sarcastic

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

St. Louis:

1646 vs. 1098 7 times in a row out of 9

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Well, I definatly noticed this. Being on the loosing alliance about 5 times in a row is not fun... Dropped from 8th to 39th. But... it's over, only one more match left before we go home. Unless of course we are in the finals... but 39th is not good when other teams are scouting.. BUT, not much you can do.

Hopefully they will maybe do something about this for the next weeks to come. Just gotta say... right now, in my eyes, those ranks are pretty inaccurate.

GOOD LUCK TO EVERYBODY TOMORROW!!!!!!

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

I hope this gets fixed by next week....

otherwise we will be up against 254 or 330 every match!!!!:ahh:

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Wow, I came into this thread expecting similar gripes of "ooo, our (n+1)th match had somewhat similar robots as our nth match" as there was last year, but this is horrible if teams are really getting 60%+ matches against the same teams.

In past years it was always kinda like

match 1: paired with team x
match 2: playing against team x
match 3: playing after a match that had team x

Teams would kind of 'fade in' to your matches over the course of the day, then 'fade out'.

The worst part is that this isn't even something that could possibly be called an unforeseen bug, since you can always just generate test regionals with dummy teams and see if the results are sane.

I suppose one upside is that if everyone is playing their own little sub-regional with the same subset of the robots AT that regional, then finals will more closely resemble finals at the championship: you'll be playing against robots you've never played against before, and scouting is that much more important.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

I've said something similar to the following before, I'll say it again.

We are customers of FIRST.

And, I'm not sure the service FIRST is providing with this method of pairups is what the customers ordered.

I'm hoping for much more varied pairups for week two.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Without formally polling them, I am confident that "my" team (1885 at VCU) as a whole strongly dislikes the current approach to assigning teams to matches.

When I had to set-up match pairings recent for a Potomac Vex League scrimmage, I sweated my way through this subject for one long night and came up with a handcrafted schedule that spread things out evenly in time; and ensured that over 6 rounds, no team ever faced the same pair of opponents and never had the same ally. Once I did this for my 20 hypothetical teams, I randomly assigned the 20 real team numbers to the hyothetical teams and was done.

It was tedious to do this for the twenty teams coming to that scrimmage, and out of ignorance I probably made the job harder than it needed to be, but (here comes the punch line of this part of this message) I absolutely know that I could automate the process; and that it will not be all that hard to generalize and automate my process (or a better one).

So.... By the time we get to the Las Vegas Regional, I certainly hope that this week's experiment is in the dustbin of history. I hope that FIRST chooses to go back to something that is blind to any prejudices about team age or ability needing to be factored into the scheduling method.

I say this because I am willing to trust that over a 6 to 8 match set of regional qualifying rounds a regoinal's participants can get an accurate-enough assessment of team abilities to be confident that the highly seeded teams are generally where they should be and that all the teams have generally gotten an adequate opportunity to strut their stuff.

Blake
PS: Perhaps the story within the story here is this question... Should the match scheduling algorithm (described in layman's terms) be part of the published rules, so that we can all point out that discontent is high before the season's matches start?

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

In my opinion, this schedule kind of sucks. We've had to play 114 (Los Altos) the whole day (6/6 matches), which isn't terrible, but it's nice to get to play against a lot more robots. At the same time, we haven't gotten to play on the same side as 114. Not to take anything away from 114, but our robot has had a lot of problems, which may have inflated 114's score to some degree. Basically, when you have these perpetual opponents, you don't get an accurate measurement of how good a robot is. Instead, you get a composite of how good your robot is plus how bad the other team's robot is.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Seeding is meaningless, but having no variety at all in the qualification play is like only having one qualification round. Did we pay $6000 to play a mini event with only 5 other teams?

Please note that this problem was seen and pointed out BEFORE these regionals.

This seeding in unimaginative and damaging to the spirit of the game. If it is the result of someone's "policy" they should take a close look at what they have created. From what I am hearing here it is damaging the experience of many teams this weekend and should be changed for TODAY'S matches.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

I carry a really 'mix' opinion on this issue. May be for some teams going against the powerhouse teams; its going to be a big issue, while for others it might sound right.

For my own personal experience, it has showed kids (especially our team) the spirit of GP. 612 is going against 611 in every single match. Their pit is right beside us. Even though both teams are going against eachother in every single round, they've been helping eachother throughout the competion. This example emobodies the true meaning of FIRST, Gracious Professionalism.


Imad

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Has FIRST missed the mark? Part or the excitement to watch as a mentor is how the kids learn to stratagize with and against almost every team at a regional. While the mix for who you are paired with seems fairly random, having one team that you are always against is bad. Other than really getting to know that team very well and being able to easy tell your new alliance partners how to defend against them I don't see it having much benefit. I much prefer an offensive match and this looks like it will breed defensive matches. From what I have seen, simply pushing a robot around near the rack makes scoring ringers almost impossible. Veteran vs veteran and rookie vs rookie, what's up with that? There have been extremely competitive rookies and veteran teams that have had less than impressive years. All beit, a few power houses can always be counted on. Speaking of that, how many teams are looking at the teams attending thier own regionals today to see who they will be paired against. I know I did. First two listed vs eachother, Second two vs. eachother (At least that is how it goes at VCU)? The more random the better. You should be able to test your skills with and against as many teams as possible. This just doesn't measure up.


EDIT: I looked at the information available from NJ, STL, PNW, VCU. No match results were up for BAE. At PNW and VCU it looks like the first two teams listed are vs. each other every match. At NJ and STL it looks like the first two teams listed are vs. eachother every other match. I/We should all know more once today's matches are posted and when/if anyone has time to analize all the information.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Company X just started selling their 2000SUX sport utility vehicle. The first thousand SUX's on the road have airbags that deploy when the radio is tuned to 107.9 MHz, causing major accidents and injuries to the vehicle occupants. There is a public outcry calling for Company X to issue a recall and fix the problem IMMEDIATELY. The Company X CEO, nose firmly jammed north of horizontal, issues a statement declaring, "Oh, sorry, it wouldn't be fair for the first 1000 buyers if we fixed the problem for everyone else. You're just going to have to live with it blah blah blah blah blah......"

I'm pretty sure the first 1000 buyers would be more appreciative of Company X AND WOULD MORE LIKELY CHOOSE TO BE REPEAT CUSTOMERS if Company X admitted the problem and did everything they could to repair the defect.

Jack, I certainly hope FIRST doesn't follow Company X's lead. I expect them to be proactive. If they can't figure out a solution to this problem, then I'd hope they are willing to keep an open mind and consider outside algorithms brought to them by established members of the FIRST community, pride or contractual obligations or whatever be durned. Otherwise, I'd fear a significant increase in the risk of their "customers" taking their business elsewhere.

This is a major problem - a "design flaw". Let's correct the problem so our customers are more satisfied with the product.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Oh boy, hard numbers!

I wrote a C program to crunch the numbers of teams that teams played with or against at the first day of various regionals.

NASA/VCU Regional
New Jersey Regional
St Louis Regional
Interpretation
First column is how many games a team played.

Second column (|S|) is how many teams that team played either with or against. Obviously P and A are subsets of this.

Third column is how many teams a given team played AGAINST. So this is the size of the set that ALL their opponents were chosen from.

Fourth column is how many teams a given team played WITH. So this is the size of the set that ALL their alliance partners were chosen from.

You can see how a small size in either P or A might be problematic. If a team has a small pool to draw partners or opponents from, it is easy for that pool to be full of very good or very poor teams, thus throwing off that particular team's rankings.

Edit: See my post a few posts down for some stats from 2006. In general, teams did play with a wider variety back then.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

I agree with Travis - fix the problem or consider reducing the # of seeding matches to 3.

How is the strength/true seeding of a team is to be measured without variation of the opponents, the true strengths and weakness will not be validated via competition.

Weaker teams beating even weaker teams do not provide a true ranking. If that is what is intended (for any reason) - than just eliminate the seeding rankings and randomly select the #1 though #8 seeds after the pre-elimination matches. The resultant will just about match what is going to occur using the current method.

Besides, how many times does it take to demoralize the losing team, particularly if the robot capabilities and strategy isn't significantly changed from match to match.

Whats next? Requiring different drivers for every match?? After all, if the robot and strategy doesn't change from match to match - the only way to get any kind of variation is to swap out drivers, with varying capability.

I hope FIRST fixes the problem soon.

Mike

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

And now, I have analyzed the schedule for the first day at NASA/VCU from 2006.
Let's just get to the point:
Conclusion (tentative, the algorithm might switch it up on day 2):
The set of teams a team could expect to play with or against at NASA/VCU last year was much larger. On average, a 2006 team could expect to play with or against 27 teams in the first day of the regional. In the 2007 regional, a team could expect to play with or against 18 teams.

However, the larger set of teams from 2006 was split up interestingly. A 2006team could expect to see their opponents each match come from a pool of 16.5 teams, while their allies came from a pool of 12.0 teams. In 2007, opponents come from a pool of 13.5 teams, and allies from from a pool of 13.5 teams. So a 2007 team actually has more variety in allies than in 2006, but much less variety in opponents.

And here is the raw stats from the first day of the NASA/VCU regional in 2006.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

We (1279) played against 1218 every match in NJ. (100%) Very non-random, and I hope this is corrected.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

I could see how this whole thing was a plan by FIRST to make the competition a little less harsh to newer teams. However, as a few people have already mentioned, team number is not a measure of how good a robot will be. Hence, the plan backfired.

I think the problem needs to be fixed for the coming week's regionals, if nothing else go back to last year's system.

Can ANYONE confirm or deny a plan to change the system for the coming weeks, has anyone been told anything?

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

IMHO, a team's number should not have ANY impact on the seeding of the teams, as there are exceptions to the rule. Relying on team number alone is a very poor method of randomly seeding matches, as although there might be a slight trend towards lower number teams as better teams, "picking and choosing" your data to randomly sample a population creates biased results.

It's like asking everyone who's standing outside a building if they smoke, to try to ascertain the number of people who smoke in a company. Your data is obviously going to be biased.

So to solve this problem, we need to go back to elementary statistics and what they have to say about randomness. What we want is a match schedule that "mixes teams up", while still allowing for a minimum time span between matches. To do that, we will need a normally distributed match schedule.

Here's a quick sketch I made to illustrate the idea:



Of course I picked 1 hour as the mean and 15 minutes as the standard deviation, but that data can be changed as necessary. Increasing the mean would allow for greater separated matches, while increasing the standard deviation would also allow more "mixing up" of the matches, but at the sacrifice of some of the minimum timespan between matches.

And of course the real algorithm would have to take into account more variables than this, but this is just a concept. ;)

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

we played 25 in at least half of our matches today. IMHO, i was very entertained by the eliminations at the regional, they were some very intense matches so i'm not complaining, but it seemed to me that they put a low number with a mid-ish number, and a rookie team/high number (<2000) I don't see how you can expect a fair and or "random" match from the same groups/sets of teams based on the teams number and not their robots specific ability/skill/efficiency this year

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Yeah I noticed that the matches were not quite random at NJ. My old team went up against another team all day Friday and Saturday. As far as Time in between matches, my old team went up every 10 - 12 matches which is probably almost 30 minutes (or more) if you count all of the field resets in between and 1 - 5 minor scoring table or robot technacalities - for the most part we were resetting the matches about 5 minutes every round (which isn't too bad) The Teams were very patient & I did not recieve any complaints about the matches not being random enough. I don't think the Match Generation System can be fixed while the software is out on the road traveling to about 4 - 5 regionals but I guess is FIRST has a private internet line I guess they (the Scoring Table) can d/l any updates to the System. The world may never know. :confused:

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Yet another MORT member heard from. (Sorry guys, but we did get hosed.)
I think I understand the intent of this system. The belief (misguided though it is) was that by pairing a rookie with an experienced team, the rookies would be able to advance, making the competitions more "fair" to rookie teams.
Now, this system is based on two assumptions. The first is that a team's age and its robot's abilities are inversely proportional. This isn't always true, as our rookie all-stars prove every year. The second assumption was that rookies deserve a better shot at winning than experienced teams. Coming from an experienced team, I may be biased, but with three "rookie-only" awards, do we also need to skew the qualification matches to "help" rookies?
Sorry if I'm stepping on any toes, but this looks a bit like they're stacking it to me. I'd much prefer true randomized pairings, and let everyone rise or fall on their own merit, not their perpetual teammate/opponent's.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Yes, my comments in no way, shape, or form represent Team 118, in any fashion and are solely the views of me.

What I meant:

To explain what I mean is that I believe it is more fair for the rookies to kind of have a fair chance at the Finals by having them compete more with rookies rather than veterans. I think that the matches should be 60% Vet vs Vet||Rooks vs Rooks, and that the other 40% should be a combination of integration.

But for it to fit their algorithm of the time between matches they would have to be similar to this:

(Odd = Veteran Team; Even = Rookie Team)
Match 1: 1,3,5,7,9,11
Match 2: 2,4,6,8,10,12
Match 3: 13,15,17,19,21,23
Match 5: 14,16,18,20,22,24
(Few matches later)
Match 7: 1,2,13,4,8,10
et cetera.

That is just how I feel it would be more fair because that way rookies would have a more fair chance of getting to the top 8 seeds.

Now some of you say well, the vets will kill the rooks, but if you think about it, you will have usually 4 vets and 4 rookies or 5 vets and 3 rookies or even 3 vets and 5 rookies at the final 8 before they pick their teams and after they pick they will probably be around one or two veterans per team to (naturally) balance things out.

Pavan.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

While the idea of trying to give rookies a leg up is a really nice thing to do I'm not sure if it is really fair. If the system is setup so that there is adequate time in between the teams should be playing a random set of teams. If a rookie robot is good then it will seed high just like any other good bot. Messing with the deck and stacking it even for the weaker players doesn't help make people feel better about the results.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Side comment:
Pavan, what I meant by that was that 118's robot(s) can go in any direction beautifully and it seems that your thoughts can as well. 'Diagonal step forward' is a great way to express a thought and sounds like 118 movement. :)
Sorry for the confusion.
Jane

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

I recommend that someone write a short program which takes a look at the ranking after the "seeding rounds" take place. Look at the top 10 teams, see if they had repeat opponents, and note the final rank of those opponents.

Remember that rankings are very important to how alliances are chosen for the final rounds.

Does the data show a pattern?

I did this check by hand for the PNW Regional. (So my count may be slightly off.) There were 54 competitors.

Rank 1
- faced the same competitor 8 times who finished with a rank of 54

Rank 2
- faced the same competitor 4 times who finished with a rank of 32
- faced the same competitor 4 times who finished with a rank of 43

Rank 3
- faced the same competitor 8 times who finished with a rank of 52

Rank 4
- faced the same competitor 8 times who finished with a rank of 50

Rank 5
- faced the same competitor 4 times who finished with a rank of 18
- faced the same competitor 4 times who finished with a rank of 44

Rank 6
- faced the same competitor 8 times who finished with a rank of 51

Rank 7
- faced the same competitor 8 times who finished with a rank of 45

Rank 8
- faced the same competitor 8 times who finished with a rank of 46

Rank 9
- faced the same competitor 4 times who finished with a rank of 53
- faced the same competitor 4 times who finished with a rank of 33
- faced the same competitor 2 times who finished with a rank of 35
- faced the same competitor 2 times who finished with a rank of 49

Rank 10
- faced the same competitor 8 times who finished with a rank of 48

The PNW Regional data shows a pattern. Not to take away from every team who performed well, but is this really the "intended" outcome? Note that the rules clearly state the schedule cannot be changed after it is published.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

2108 played 2186 every single match. I fell sorry for them because we only lost one match. 2106 played 2107 the whole time too. We did well though and we ended up winning. I never really expected to win but we did work hard.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

I am going to have to be blunt about this. This must be fixed. Teams that work hard to field a robot and come to a competition will not accept this sort of scheduling, and should not. There are many highly skilled mentors involved in the FIRST program who understand random scheduling, while satisfying constraints, and who would happily turn out validated scheduling software for FIRST to use. Yes, I know that it is a hard problem, but it is a solvable one. The match scheduling should be based only on the index of the teams, (1-N) for the teams at the regional, should be random while satisfying the needed constraints on the schedule and should be blind to the team numbers. The index schedule for a given value of "N teams" at a regional need never change, only the task of randomly matching teams to the indicies needs to be done at the regional.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

For this amount of trouble, lets step away from algorithms and any other sort of computerized system, as any kind of solution is bound to result in patterns, which we want to avoid to have a fair game.

This is my solution, and a very simple one. For each regional FIRST should buy popsicle sticks for as many teams as are attending. If there are 48 teams for the SV regional, FIRST buys 48 popsicle sticks. Each stick will have one team number written on it. Then they are all placed into a corrugated cardboard box with a lid. You shake the box really hard for five seconds, and then open it. Without looking, a person picks out sticks three at a time, forming alliances. After all of the sticks have been picked and having recorded the alliances, all 48 sticks are placed back in the box and the process is repeated as many times as necessary.

For added effect I suggest that the choosing of alliances be done in plain view of all of the teams. This will generate a lot of excitement as well as doing away with any doubt of having truly "random" match schedules.

(I think this is a realistic and fair way of chosing alliances.)

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Only one problem: how long would this take for 100+ matches? A few hours, surely.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

The regional directors, as well as the rest of FIRST, has a little less than two weeks to figure out a solution. This is plenty, doing away with my original idea of doing it on actual competition day (which now that you point it out is a waste of time). If it takes time to end up with a fair game, so be it.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

I hate to point this out, but there are regionals next weekend. Sooner is better than later in this case. If they're going to do something they'll probably (hopefully) do it this week.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Referring to what Joe Matt said in the VCU Regional Thread...

Instead of thinking of this randomization (or lack thereof) as a flaw in the system, maybe, just maybe, it was intended to prep us for the 2008 game? If it is going to be needed that we know our alliance teams in and out, why not give us a taste of this collaboration in 2007 (even though it would've been nice knowing it far in advance.. :p )? Maybe in 2008 we'll have solid alliance teams (I doubt it, but its possible).....?

I know, I know: it's a long shot. (And probably not the reason at all.) But 'tis a funny thought! :D



SVR March 17!! :D

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

1) This is a waste of time. Volunteers and/or FIRST staff have much better things to be doing with their time.

2) You'll end up with teams playing a match, and then a second match, without enough time between the two. Hence the need for an algorithm.

Last year's algorithm, or plenty that have been posted by users here on CD would be fine. Anything but what we have now.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

As the other half of that situation I wholeheartedly agree with you. We go to play ALL the teams in the event. We looked forward to playing WITH the Hawaiian Kids at least once yesterday and that never happened.
And we know that MORT knows how to kick our "bots defensively. There was nothing THAT wrong with the old random match generator. It certainly beats the nonsense we saw this weekend. The old format might not have made everyone happy but the new algorithm has succeeded in making just about everyone unhappy.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Not random, EVERY, and I literally mean EVERY game we played had at least team 948 (They became the number one seed). Because of these "random" match schedules we ended at the opposite end of the rankings.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Let's not contribute too many opinions on what was in the minds of the committee who designed this algorithm.

I don't think anyone consciously said, "Let's put vet against vet and rookie against rookie." Rather, the "max time between matches" constraint was emphasized over all other constraints. Then they simply decided on team number as a primary sort - they could have done it alphabetically, or could have done it randomly. It wouldn't matter. Once "max time between matches" was decided as having priority, teams would end up seeing the same teams over and over again.

The popsicle stick in a bowl thing can easily be set up as a computer simulation. But then we have decided that "randomness" is the highest priority, and time between matches means nothing.

Teach the computer could to do a popsicle stick picking. For Round1, totally randomize it. To pick for Round2 make a constraint that there has to be at least "X" matches before a team must compete again. "X" would vary based on the number of teams in a regional. It should be at least 3, but in the larger regionals could be 4 or 5. To pick the first X matches in Round2, the popsicle sticks of any team that played in the last X matches in Round1 would be set aside. Once the first X matches are picked, all the remaining popsicle sticks are thown into the drum, and the rest of the matches of the round can be drawn. Repeat for all matches up to lunch time. Then totaly randomize again, and finish Friday - or maybe set the X constraint for the first match of the afternoon to 1. Totally randomize again and pick for Saturday.

This wouldn't work as well for the small regionals of 36 teams or less, because it would effectively divide the pool into two, one group playing the first half of the round and other playing the second half. Perhaps there the constraint could be set at 2, with a 1-match-length break between each Round.

This would have to be somewhat adjusted for regionals with numbers not exactly divisible by 6.

Get working, FIRST contractors!

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

I would like to make a move for any system that lets us face as many different teams as possible. I am even willing to play two rounds in a row if this is needed, we have more than one battery, so unless you have a breakdown this should not be a major dissadvatage. The seeding match system does not need to be "random" but it should give the teams the widest exposure to each other. Many of us go to these events to meet as many other teams as possible. Playing the same teams 7 or 8 times greatly narrows that experience.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

That pattern isn't really that shocking. Any team that has faced the top ranked teams in a match will tend to have a lower ranking. Any team that has faced them multiple times will have an even lower ranking. The bad part here is not that teams that face good robots multiple times end up with a poor ranking, it is that teams HAD to face the same good robot 4+ times.

Anyway, watch this space for redos of the stats I posted yesterday, but including the final day.

Nj regional matches not random
 

the matches in nj all have a certain order to them.

ex.

our match schedule was
1
11
21
31
41
etc....

that was a good thing( no back to backs)

however
we had the same team against us every single match

and the lower number team on the opposing alliance was our alliance partner in the next match

an example would be our first three matches

1: we had 11( lowest number in NJ) and opponents were 25(next lowest) and 486( the constant opponent)

2:we had 25(opponents from 1) and they had 41 and 486

3: we had 41 and they had 75 and 486

this trend just kept on going and going and going.

also since the pits were arranged by numbers i noticed something else while scouting for the following matches i never had to talk to anyone in my row or in the middle rows. all of my opponents and allies were in the same two rows every single match.

i don't think this is right. it should be the luck of the draw( maybe that explains the whole red alliance is better than blue idea)

Re: Nj regional matches not random
 

Hey, by using the search feature (orange bar at the top of the page), you would find there is already a very well traveled thread topic on this matter.

Please post in the following thread.....

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=55178

Re: Nj regional matches not random
 

uhh did u notice at what times they were written?

apparently we started writing at almost the same time, just since my post was longer i took longer to write

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Ok, rather than spamming with a few billion lines of text, I'll just do the summaries:

There are three main stats here:
Competitior Pool Size - The size of the set of all robots a given team played against
Ally pool size - The size of the set of all robots a given team played with
Opponent pool size - The size of the set of all robots a given team played against

All the pool sizes are given as a percentage of how many robots were at that regional. That way, you can say "ooo, at St Louis last year I could expect to play with or against 88.5% of the robots at the regional". Note that the lower numbers for the bigger regionals is predictable, since the more robots you have at a regional, the fewer matches you'll have and therefore less chance to 'meet' them all (also its a bigger pool to meet from anyway).


2006 - Aim High
NASA VCU Regional
Average Matches Played: 8
Robots at regional: 64
Competitor Pool Avg Size: 60.6%
Ally Pool: 26.5%
Opponent Pool: 36.6%

Pacific Northwest Regional
Average Matches Played: 10
Robots at regional: 46
Competitor Pool Avg Size: 83.7%
Ally Pool: 43.1%
Opponent Pool: 54.8%

Great Lakes Regional (I know it hasn't happened this year yet, but its hard to find 2006 results)
Average matches played: 8
Robots at regional: 63
Competitor Pool Avg Size: 61.3%
Ally Pool: 26.9%
Opponent Pool: 36.6%

St Louis Regional
Average matches played: 12
Robots at regional: 40
Competitor Pool Avg Size: 88.5%
Ally Pool: 54.1%
Opponent Pool: 66.5%

2007 - Rack n Roll with fun happy matching algorithm
NASA VCU Regional
Average Matches Played: 8
Robots at regional: 66
Competitor Pool Avg Size: 36.3%
Ally Pool: 25.7%
Opponent Pool: 26.2%

Pacific Northwest Regional
Average Matches Played: 8.1
Robots at regional: 54
Competitor Pool Avg Size: 44.4%
Ally Pool: 31.4%
Opponent Pool: 32.0%

Jersey Regional
Average Matches Played: 7.2
Robots at regional: 59
Competitor Pool Avg Size: 40.3%
Ally Pool: 25.8%
Opponent Pool: 23.8%

St Louis Regional
Average matches played: 8.6
Robots at regional: 45
Competitor Pool Avg Size: 52.4%
Ally Pool: 39.3%
Opponent Pool: 36.4%

So as you can see, the # of robots you meet in gameplay drastically dropped from previous years. Something I noticed though is that there has to be substantial overlap between the ally and opponent sets in 2007*, something that wasn't present in 2006. This means that much more than in previous years, teams would face one team as an opponent as well as play with them as an ally.

*That is to say, summing the size of the ally and opponent sets in 2006 results in a number only barely larger than your total competitor size, implying that few robots are in both ally and opponent sets. In 2007 however, ally + opponent is often much larger than the competitor pool.

Also note that St Louis's big drop is probably helped by the fact that more robots came to it, AND they ran far fewer matches than last year.

Re: Nj regional matches not random
 

The first post in the other thread was started on march 2nd (two days ago), while yours was started today.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

OK we keep talking about the problem. Now lets work to fix this. Programing challenge. Make a system first can use to set matches. I am not a programer but can something like this work?

1 can only play with a team once
2 can only go againts a team once
3 must have 6 matches between rounds (or 5 if it works better)

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

My dad had a good suggestion for how they should generate match schedules. Just generate matrices (size [6] by [total number of matches] filled with numbers 1 to number of teams) that are optimized for number of unique opponents and unique allies, but meet a reasonable rotation rate constraint*. Make these matrices for all possible numbers of teams at a regional (24-100 or so).

Now these optimized matrices can be used at every event. Just randomly assign each team a number 1 to number of teams and drop into the corresponding spots in the matrix.

These optimized matrices will take time to generate, but that is a one time cost for the foreseeable future since the same matrices can be reused. It doesn't seem difficult to write an algorithm to generate these matrices, since it is similar to the classic 8 Queens puzzle.

* When I say rotation rate, I mean the number of a the number of matches until the same team has to go again. Expected rotation rate is (number of teams)/6. I thing 50% of expected rotation should be the minimum constraint of any subset of matches

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Here's an algorithm

Fixed!

Also, your constraints aren't good. At a small regional like waterloo where there are few robots and many (12+) matches to be played, not being able to play a team twice is impossible. 3 opponents * 12 matches is more than the robots at that regional (30 last year). That's why you have to start using less concrete things like "minimize the # of times a given robot plays another", which makes it more difficult. How do you know a given algorithm minimizes that constraint?

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

With less than a week before the next set of competitions, there is not enough time to write, test, re-write, distribute, explain, and implement a new system. However there is time to hand out last year's system (which wasn't perfect but a lot better than this) and just use that.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

To satisfy a lot of the issues, bring back the 2006 system with a few changes.

1 - no team can play 2 matches in a row
2 - no team can play more than 2 matches in 2 rounds
- ie: you could play match 6 and 8 but then not play till match 13 if there are 36 teams at the event

This is not perfect and your team could end up playing 4 games in 7 matches but that is the worst scenario. You could, in a 36 team regional, play matches 10, 12, 14, and 16 but then not play till match 34 and 36,

The fact is that the longer that you put between matches played the less random the teams that you play with becomes. I seem to remember the same issues being said last year with Hatch. Part of last years issues was that at the regional, score keepers did not set the variables right. At one venue I was at the practice schedule was the same as the match and almost all of the teams played were in your group of 6. A little tweak in software and we had a much better schedule.

We may not be able to use last years match generation as the software belonged to Hatch and they are gone.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Even with our rookie team, we pretty much faced our sister school, Team 2191, in every match as well as a few times with another rookie team 2140. It didnt really bother me since it led to us being the highest seeded rookie but lets spread the love around and see some other teams.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

Does anyone know what FIRST had in mind with this years algorithm? My guess is no. I am sure that FIRST has made a major change in how alliances are set by looking at the alliances observed over the last three days and all the anaylizing that has been done. Given that, FIRST will probably be looking over the results to see if what they had intended to happen actually happened. If the results are what FIRST was looking for, I see no reason for them to change (not necessarily my personal opinion, especially if it was to force any team to constantly be opposed to one of the power house teams, that is just plain wrong). If it did not, FIRST may or may not change the algorithm. A change in the algorithm would be considered a major change and FIRST will probably be resistent to make changes this late in the game. The time for major changes like this is during the off season. Pardon me for my naivete, but, shouldn't a change like this be disscused in an open forum before it is instituted? That may have happened and I was simply not aware of it. If FIRST does not change the algorithm, I believe the least they could do is explain to us why the changes were made and what the results they are looking for are. My personal opinion is that you should be allied with and against as many different teams as possible. You learn to work with a lot of different people and stratagies. The teams that were always against eachother were probably getting a little tired of allways facing off. Team number should never be used for anything other than identification. If the alliances continue as they are, let's get over it and plan our statagies accordingly. GAME ON! Good luck to all the teams out there.

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

888 and 868 have been against each other in St. Louis 4 times

Re: "Random" match Schedules
 

I don't know what the intent of the scheduling was, but I was a bit saddened by it. I love meeting most of the teams, but since I am in the pits I usually only get to meet our neighbors and alliance partners/opponents. Because we only played with a limited number of teams, I didn't get to meet very many people.
Another negative effect was that some teams played against each other every match. One thing I always point out to people who I am explaining FIRST to is that an opponent one match is an ally the next. Teams cannot play with poor behavior towards their opponents because they will have to play with them next. I know that teams should "play nice" regardless, but it is much easier for team ABC to feel animosity towards DEF if they play against them in every round. I am not saying that any specific teams showed ungracious professionalism towards any perpetual opponents. I am just pointing out that this setup made it easier for teams to see each other as opponents and not co-competitors.