Re: "New" 2nd Week Scheduling Algorithm
 

I think what he's hitting at is not that each team is getting fewer matches than before (although this is the case in some situations), but that each regional is having notably fewer matches than in the past. Sure, 2004 was 2v2, and therefore required significantly more matches to grant teams as much time on the field. But just like 2004, the rounds are only 2 minutes and 15 seconds long. If Florida was able to manage 104 matches of that length in 2004, why are they doing only 65% as many rounds this year? Surely setting up two additional robots per match dosen't make a match cycle take 50% longer.

Since our team's rookie year in 2004 we have seen a significant decline in the number of matches we play per regional. I don't have any hard numbers for each event, but our rookie year we got between 10 and 12 matches at both the Pacific NW Regional and the Sacremento Regional. This year, despite being 3v3 now over the 2v2 the first year, we only got 8 matches - largely due to the regionals growing. Portland has gone from roughly 36 teams in 2004 to 54 teams this year.

- Jeff

Re: "New" 2nd Week Scheduling Algorithm
 

How is it lousy? Doesn't that judgement depend on what criteria you choose to emphasize in assigning qualification match partners and opponents? Why should the criteria for making qualifying matches be anything at all like those used by scouts to select elimination partners? What goal of FIRST would be served by that?

IMO the object of qualifying matches is to expose every team's strengths and weaknesses so that scouts get the clearest possible picture of the pool of talent from which elimination partners can be drafted. (Clearly this object was poorly served by the "pertpetual opponent" algorithm because that scheme failed to put teams on the field with the largest number of different alliance partners and against the largest number of different opponents.) Given that during 1-1/2 days of qualifying it is not possible to ally every robot with every other robot, nor oppose every robot with every other robot, would any good end be served by making qualifying alliances of low numbered teams?

Students of statistics will appreciate that "randomness" in assigning qualifying match alliance partners and opponents is not a realistic goal. There is simply not enough time available. The best we can do is agree on a set of realistic criteria for qualifying match assignments and devise an algorithm that comes as close as possible to satisfying those criteria. Tom Saxton has taken a crack at this; I think his effort is worth detailed study by FIRST engineering staff and such study may move this discussion in the right direction.

Re: "New" 2nd Week Scheduling Algorithm
 

When more then a few teams show up in the top 8 who can not score points I think something is wrong. I think the new matching algorithm makes the top 8 too much about luck rather than skill.

I think after qualification matches, the best teams should have more or less the best records. I think it will be discouraging when teams have excellent machines that don't make the top 8, or get picked by a rookie that can't score who was paired with the same dominating veteran the whole competition.

Good design, build, strategy, and gameplay are not being adaquately rewarded.

Re: "New" 2nd Week Scheduling Algorithm
 

The reason your team is getting matches is what you said, more teams. With more teams it is inevitable that you will have fewer matches. Every regional has given teams a minimum of 8 matches, and several have given more. If you try and cram more matches in, you give each team less time to make repairs between matches, less time for pre-match strategy, etc. There is no need to play more matches than you can comfortably fit into a schedule. Of all the competitions I listed with 116 earlier, 5 of the 7 had 56-66 teams (the VCUs and Chesapeakes), and each played 7 or 8 matches (9 for 2006 VCU because we played as a "surrogate"). I think that's a decent amount considering the number of teams participating.

Re: "New" 2nd Week Scheduling Algorithm
 

I don't care what teams we get paired with, what number they are, what color their eyes are. I want, as accurately as the tournament's dynamics allow, seeding matches to represent the actual abilities of the teams who play them.

An example.

Looking through many regional standings and videos, and our own second week experience, I have seen far to many box bots in the top eight than either the game's dynamics or historical precedent allow for. There are always robots who get carried into the top eight, but they used to be relatively sparse. Teams might see one or two teams float up throughout a couple regionals.

This year is not the same. I have not analyzed the algorithm extensively, I have not interpreted the match results to find out why a disproportionate amount of non-scoring robots are making it into the top eight. I do however feel that there is a problem that needs to be fixed- and I do not necessarily fix the blame on the new algorithm. There is an issue that is allowing teams who are not leading their alliances to seed extremely high with regularity, and I'm not at all sure why. But regardless of why it's happening, in my opinion, many people of all team numbers are getting the short end of the stick.

Teams that are not especially skilled in game play or strategy, and their alliances as explained in my linked post, are at a direct disadvantage going into finals, and it's not beneficial to anyone caught up in it. Teams aren't losing because of bad planning, design, or strategy, but because of good luck. The situation just doesn't seem to sit well in my mind, but it doesn't seem impossible to remedy either.

Re: "New" 2nd Week Scheduling Algorithm
 

There are essentially three distinct schools of though I have noticed in this and the other threads dealing with this subject. Each of these has a different idea of the objective of the qualification matches:
*Seeding: that the qualification matches are for seeding teams based on ability, with the best teams emerging as the top seeds
*Performance: that the qualification matches are for determining which bots are the best by pitting them against each other and allowing them to showcase their abilities. The W/L/T records are not important, and it's the responsibility of scouts to make the determination of who is the best.
*Competition: that the qualification matches are to create dynamic and competitive matches with evenly matched alliances in every match to produce the most entertaining product possible.

Unfortunately it is probably impossible to create an algorithm and schedule that fulfills each of these criteria fully, and someone will always be unhappy with the results.

Re: "New" 2nd Week Scheduling Algorithm
 

A few thoughts off the top of my head:

1) I don’t think that FIRST segregating team by purposely pooling low, medium and high teams is a good thing. By FIRST segregating teams into “pools” they are inherently saying that one group is different than the other. Whether they are “better” or “worse” or otherwise “special” I can only speculate but as a society I thought we learned somewhere back in the 60’s that segregating groups of people is never a good idea.

2) In a regional with a lot rookie teams (more than 1/3 of the teams in this case), many of the rookies don’t yet understand the importance of good scouting and tend to pick the next highest ranked team whether or not that team will be the best alliance partner for them or not.

3) With the current non-random scheduling algorithm rookies are artificially pushed up the rankings.

4) My contention is that is doesn’t make nearly as much of a difference to low number teams with a good arm design as it does to low number teams with a good ramp/lift design. Dave told everyone at Bayou that the GDC wants teams to learn how to work together. They intentionally made the lift part of the game this year to challenge us to think about all the different types of robots that we will compete with and against. They intentionally wanted us to “get in the heads” of the other teams that we have never met. We actually did this. We sat down and thought about how we could make our robot as compatible with as many different unknown robot designs as possible. Then we proceeded to do the best we could to accommodate these designs. Our robot has and effective arm to place ringers and dual lifts that are spring loaded and are actuated by our alliance partner going up the ramp and into position and then are released by the alliance partners robot. Thus we are using part of the energy in our alliance partner to make the actual lift. While it was not compatible with all robot drivetrains we looked at the list of teams that would be competing at our regional and assumed that we would be randomly partnered with veteran teams at least as often as rookie teams. This was a false assumption. Had the rules given to us at kickoff stated “veteran teams will always be paired with rookie teams” I would have read between the lines that the chances of all the rookie teams having solid reliable drivetrains capable of climbing any sort of incline is much lower than veteran teams with established drivetrains. Also, I would have figured in the likelihood that the rookie drivers (with or without as solid, reliable drivetrain) probably didn't have as much driver practice as the veteran drivers who more than likely had a robot from a previous season to train their drivers on. Factoring these in we would have determined that ramps would not be as effective with rookie partners as they would be with veteran partners thus we would have focused more of our resources on a more effective arm and less on our ramps. As it stands we abandoned our usual strategy of do one thing and do it well and tried to do both this year. Unfortunately, this was not the year to change our usual strategy. That was our fault, however, if we had known then what we know now about the scheduling algorithm we would not have made that decision. I guess what I am saying is if you are an arm bot and you show up to a match with out any alliance partners or neither of your alliance partners can even move then at least you are capable of scoring ringer points on your own. You may or may not win but at least you can play the game. If you are in the same situation but are a ramp/lift bot at best you can play defense but you can’t actually score any points unless you have alliance partners. FIRST wants us to play the partner game but then they fix the matches so the chances are much higher that we won’t have any partners to play with.

Why? There were 37 teams at Bayou. We played 12 qualifying matches. That is 3 teams per alliance x 12 matches = 36 teams. Why couldn’t we each play with AND against each team but one?

I believe you must not have actually looked at my attached spreadsheet or you would see that the “randomizer” in question is, in fact, in no way random. This is the sum of the issue.

We all paid for the same opportunity to play with and against the same teams not a subset. Yes it does come down to how you perform, unfortunately, in a game where partners are important your performance is directly effected by your partners.

Re: "New" 2nd Week Scheduling Algorithm
 

I'm not asking to find a perfect algorithm that makes every team do awesome and every team feel warm and fuzzy. You're absolutely right- that is impossible. I'm simply saying that what has existed in the past did an adequate job of fair ranking, whereas this year, everything seems to be out of whack.

To add some weigh to the "seedings should reflect a teams ability", FIRST themselves has an award specifically to reward the rookie with the highest seed. I doubt they would give such an award if they didn't put faith in the fact that rookies would be awarded it for an excellent robot design, not simply serendipitous matches.

Re: "New" 2nd Week Scheduling Algorithm
 

Sean,
I think you missed a 4th school - "Variety".
Variety - the desire to mix things up and not repeatedly play with or against the same partner or opponent.

The other 3 you mentioned were spot on though.

The beauty is that there are probably many solutions - if there was only that one criteria.

Mike

Re: "New" 2nd Week Scheduling Algorithm
 

Another factor that I noticed contributing to this was that fact that a 3rd alliance partner can coast to victory on their partners' abilities. This happened at GLR on Friday; one robot got out on the field for only 1 or 2 of their 6 matches. But because their human player was there, they got credit for their alliance's accomplishments. At the end of the day they were ranked just below the top 10.

I'm going to use this as an example at Detroit when I'm lead queuer, to emphasize the importance of getting at least your human player to the field.

Re: "New" 2nd Week Scheduling Algorithm
 

Personally I don't think that team pairings should be made with a particular algorithm - pure randomization works for me.

With regards to teams being categorized into different groups based on number - that's more than a little unfair to all teams. I would have loved to have the (purely random) opportunity to play against different teams, regardless of age or status. To stratify teams within a competition is outrageous.

Teams did not get what they paid for equally - a spot in a regional should be just that - a spot in a randomized list, the same as any other team. To be separated and segregated really is against the spirit of how the competitions have been arranged in the past - or at least, how I have seen them - a part of the competition is seeing how you due in random pairings against randomly paired opponents.

Putting an even mix of differently aged teams on the field accomplishes nothing. Rookie teams, as well as veteran teams, should be viewed as equal when on the field and when determining when and with whom they play.

Re: "New" 2nd Week Scheduling Algorithm
 

I'll briefly state my support for the non-pooled match scheduling system employed in previous years. Sometimes we ended up going against a powerhouse alliance, sometimes we were part of one, but I at least had confidence that overall the alliances would end up balanced. After all, we were being treated the same as everyone else. Now we aren't -- we're being treated the same as teams with the same team number, which is quite a different thing.

In fact, had we (Team 1346) attended the Wisconsin Regional, we would have been grouped in with the "veteran" pool. If we had attended Great Lakes we would have been in the "rookie" pool. At most regionals we would have been pool "B", smack in the middle.

Looking at the overall results of the five second weekend regionals (I've left off Brazil, not because I don't like Brazil, but because it is listed as a "Pilot" regional) and sorting the teams into pools based on team numbers and looking at the top eight qualifiers, then comparing the numbers to similar regionals from last year you get:

Top Eight Qualifying Spots Sorted by "Pool" for Second Week Regionals
Pool.............................................. .......2007............2006
Veterans (lowest 1/3 of team numbers).......14................21
Mid Year Teams......................................16..... ...........10
Rookies (highest 1/3 of team numbers).........10.................9

This would indicate to me that (as one would suspect) the pooling scheme has resulted in a more even distribution of top eight finishes amongst the three pools. Is this good? Is this bad? Are the numbers even significant?

All I know, is that if they are signficant, then veteran teams are being denied positions as alliance captains because of their team numbers. If the numbers aren't significant then the pooling system wasn't needed in the first place, was it?

Jason

P.S. Apologies for not formatting the excel file a little neater, it was mostly for my work and the data is summarized here.

Re: "New" 2nd Week Scheduling Algorithm
 

Here are my team's (1072) qualifying matches for LA (there were 52 teams present):
Allies
597, 1722
599, 1669
702, 1759
399, 2174
597, 1836
702, 2174
254, 1702
606, 1759
691, 1855

Opponents
599, 1138, 1759
687, 812, 1644
4, 1722, 1197
330, 1438, 2272
294, 1266, 2178
599, 1266, 1669
399, 980, 2029
330, 867, 1669
330, 968, 2178

We had nine matches and interacted with a total of 31 teams, many of them multiple times. Getting paired with a few teams multiple times, sure that happens. But we were allied with four teams twice, played against four teams twice, and played against 330 three times. I still had fun, but it seemed repetitive after a while.

Same here. Complete randomization will let teams demonstrate their capabilities much more accurately (at least relative to each other), since lucky and unlucky alliances will balance out on average.

Re: "New" 2nd Week Scheduling Algorithm
 

So, did anyone notice if this algorithm has remained the same since week 2 or if it's been changed through the other events?

The scheduling at Silicon Valley left a lot to be desired during week 3. We played a more randomized set of opponents, but not notably so. What's worse than playing against the same opponent four times, however, was the scheduling of our matches themselves. We had two sets of nearly back-to-back matches separated by a gap of 3.5 hours.

Has anyone else had a longer gap between matches? :) The closest we've had two consecutive matches was three apart.

Re: "New" 2nd Week Scheduling Algorithm
 

Here's our matches from Boston, week 4:

2099, 1757, 173 vs 2103, 1761, 246
1973, 1568, 173 vs 1922, 1403, 155
2103, 1686, 173 vs 2125, 1761, 69
1975, 1768, 173 vs 2079, 1761, 529
1973, 1626, 173 vs 1975, 1909, 97
2099, 1757, 173 vs 2262, 1831, 125
2110, 1761, 173 vs 1965, 1768, 126
1965, 1350, 173 vs 2124, 1685, 97
2043, 1685, 173 vs 2103, 1735, 155

You can draw your own conclusions.