Were we a surrogate?!?!
 

Today at Finger Lakes, my team (1405) went 4-5 through 9 matches. But, I checked on the FIRST website and we're listed as 4-4 through 8 matches. We're 1 of only 2 teams that has 8 matches played (everyone else has 9) and 2 qualifying matches tomorrow morning. BTW, there's 40 teams at FLR, which is obviously not divisible by 6.

My best guess is that in 1 of our losses we were considered a surrogate. Is this true?? I would be really really happy if it was :)

Re: Were we a surrogate?!?!
 

Check your match list. There should be an "s" column. If there is a 1 in it, you were.

Re: Were we a surrogate?!?!
 

See the 2008 FRC Manual, Section 9.3.2. If you played a surrogate match it should have been the third one on your schedule.

Re: Were we a surrogate?!?!
 

YES!! According to this photo in match 15, we were the surrogate (third match like Richard said, with a "1" next to it like Eric said). We did lose that match 34-50.

I love you guys. This is fantastic news. I simply love you guys :)

Re: Were we a surrogate?!?!
 

excuse my inexperience, but what does surrogate mean?

Re: Were we a surrogate?!?!
 

Surrogates are needed when the number of teams at an event are not evenly divisible by 6. In order to have 6 robots in every match and still have every team play the same number of official matches a small number of "surrogates" are assigned in certain matches (looks like their 3rd match this year). These teams participate in the match, but it does not count for or against them in the standings, the match only counts for the non-surrogate teams.

EDIT: Thanks for the correction Gary, it should be number of teams times number of rounds.

Re: Were we a surrogate?!?!
 

Not quite, but close enough. Surrogates are needed if the number of robots times the number of rounds is not divisible by 6.
It is always the team's third match in which they might be a surrogate.

Re: Were we a surrogate?!?!
 

I am glad they changed the rule and made it the third match.

A few years ago we were in a final match with a surrogate that had been preforming very well during the competition. In pre-match strategy discussions they came up and told us they were going to try something new. No matter how hard our drivers tried to convince them otherwise, they didn't care, the match meant nothing to them. Of course their new stuff failed and we lost the match. We were very unhappy.

Re: Were we a surrogate?!?!
 

Our's was the opposite. We didnt know and stressed the heck out on our match #3. That win meant a lot, but didnt count.:D
I wonder if based on the no. of teams, FIRST should maybe add or remove a scheduled # of matches to "reduce" the no. of surrogates.
Teams that lose will say who cares because it didnt matter.
Teams that win will say too bad it didnt count for a hard fought match. Winning matches are tough no matter how many you win.

Re: Were we a surrogate?!?!
 

Good observation. This was just the sort of situation that drove the new structure for the surrogate matches. There were too many teams that were not playing their surrogate matches in the same manner and with the same intensity as their other matches. This seemed to be exacerbated by having the surrogate match as the last match of the schedule, when some teams thought they could "lighten up" their style of play without any adverse effects. Having the surrogate match last in the schedule allowed a team to have full knowledge of how they and other teams were performing, and how playing at full intensity (or not) would affect the other teams in the match.

In the very worst case, having the surrogate matches as the last match in the schedule provided the opportunity to play some pretty ugly tactics. Consider the case of team that was assigned to a surrogate match with alliance partners that were ranked higher than them in the standings. Knowing that the match would not count for (or against) them, they would look instead at how the match would affect the standings of their alliance partners and opponents. They could find themselves in the position where if they intentionally "threw" the match and lost, it would cause their alliance partners to drop in the standings, but they would not. In particular cases, this could bump them up high enough to be in the top eight slots, and suddenly become a picking team during alliance selections. The potential for that sort of disingenuous play was to be avoided.

I am not saying that there are any teams that were actually observed doing this (unfortunately, I am also not saying that there were not). But just the potential for a scenario like this to happen was enough to force reconsideration of how the surrogate matches were assigned.

-dave



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Re: Were we a surrogate?!?!
 

I've also seen teams choose not to go out for their surrogate match because they needed to work on their robot before the Elimination rounds. Knowing they were a surrogate, they'd just send out a human player and keep working on their robot in the pits. On the one hand, I can't fault them for wanting to get their robot fixed before the finals, but you can bet if it was a real match that counted, they'd have done whatever they could to get out there and play.