Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

I'm thinking a better way might be to count event wins as 2 pts, and event finalists as 1 pt, divide by number of teams.

This is because a regional being hard to win has little to do with CAs EIs or anything else. How well the teams "Get FIRST" has very little to do with how awesome their robot is. I'm not denouncing the validity of these awards, just discounting their merit for the purposes of measuring difficulty.

We could call it WAFER: Winner And Finalist Equalizing Rank.

You could split it at the 2005 3v3 era, i'm just not sure this has much merit either. Pre-2005 alliances still had 3 teams on them, just 2 on the field.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

Describe the algorithm and a good way of harvesting data for it and I'll do my best. (After my hw of course)

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

I think the rookie factor kills everything like 3357, and the two from Canada...so lets wait til we are sitting in the stands watching the compitition to see what the "toughest" regional is :) What you guys think? I think its a good idea

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

We try to find the hardest regional purely for fun. Realistically the numerical rankings mean next to nothing to anyone.

As a side note, I'm really struggling to understand what you are saying with this post. I would strongly suggest utilizing the English language when trying to communicate on these boards. Capitalization and punctuation would also help.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

I think FLR is different than any other regional, it's a miniature World Champs with all sorts of high and low caliber teams in heavy and friendly competition.

Anyway, A better way of ranking regionals would be to average out the winning and losing scores of each match each year, getting a Regional Average for both winning and losing. You'd want a good look at which regional scored the highest losing scores. Teams that scored 50 points and lost > Teams that scored 30 points and lost, and then see which regional scored the highest average points.

You'd have to do this for the past 2-3 years as each year's scoring ratio is different.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

I can only assume that one of the "two from Canada" is 2056, known around here as the "Rookie Sensation". Nowadays, they're no rookie, but are poised this year to become the sole holders of the record they currently share with the Cheesy Poofs (254). They have won their first 8 consecutive Regionals. They have never competed in a Regional event that they didn't win. 2007 was their rookie season, and they swept WAT and GTR with 1114's help. 2056 has been regional champions at Waterloo and Greater Toronto every year since 2007. 7 out of the 8 times they've won, 1114 was at the top of the podium with them (exception being 2009 WAT). The two teams have excellent programs, and are leaders in their communities.

You're right. You can't account for the rookie factor. We can only assess regional difficulty in a numerical form by assessing the past performance of the teams in attendance by one metric or another, and no matter what metric you use, you're bound to be surprised at some point.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

Im just saying that with as much time as most people spend on trying to predit the toughest regional, I think they should be trying to make the toughest robot

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

Perhaps look at highest seeded teams as I feel it is more impressive to win qualifications and lose the regional than get lucky as a 3rd pick team by the 2nd alliance. Although luck also plays a factor in this but if 7 teams with an average qualification ranking over the past 4 years of 2 are all attending the same regional you better bet money that it will be competitive!

Tetraman Totally agree with your post as well. FlR is different and the wining and losing scores would be a good indicator!

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2383

Do this for every team at an event, and then do some stats for the event. Highest top 2 deviation from number 3 should be a good indicator of how tough it would be to win the event (assuming you are not 1, 2, or lucky number 24).
Averaging the values would give a pretty good idea of how tough it would be to compete at an event.
Looking at the average of the top 24 will give you a pretty good idea of how competitive elims will be.
Yes, this will give a ranking advantage to teams that compete at more events, but they are generally more competitive teams anyway.
Rookies would be wild-cards.

After the season is done, it is really good to look at things like OPR (if OPR is a reasonable metric for that year). Going into the championship, it was pretty reasonable to predict that the highest seeding score match would come from Archimededs.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

If a regional doesn't have alot of teams traveling to it, or if those teams do not visit other regionals to any large extent, then success in that event does not mean much in comparison to the rest of the world. Someone has to win regardless of how great or poor the competition is. Could we instead see what percentage of the teams in each regional get picked up for elims at Champs? Maybe weight 1 point for being picked up in elims, 2 points for semis, 3 points for division finals, 4 points for making it to Einstein and 5 points for a world championship? Divide all of that by the number of years of experience so that a successful rookie last year doesn't penalize the regional for not having years of data.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

I think the only way to do a decent regional ranking would be to utilize, in some way, every bit of statistical data that is widely available for every team.

A regional win could be weighted high, a regional finalist would be considered but not weited as high. Seeding from previous regionals should also be looked at.

I just feel that basing it off of just blue banners or seeding ranks is not accurate enough. In many cases, the last picked team can win a regional. Also, in 2009, we seeded like 50th in the Midwest regionl only because we were consistently paired with bots that either didn't show up, or didn't move. We ended up making it to finals that year, which just shows that seeding can be completely off; although getting that unlucky doesn't occur very often.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

Ultimately, the reason BBQ is effective is because, for discussing the hardest regional to win, it doesn't matter how well you do unless you won.

Don't construe the above statement as "winning is all that matters" - but when we're talking about difficulty of winning, all that is in the discussion is winning - catch my drift?

That's why a regional with 2 powerhouses and otherwise completely terrible robots will be just as hard to win as a very deep event. Strength of the top is what will ultimately stop you from winning overall - unless you can assemble a quality alliance of 3 second tier robots. This alliance may beat 2 top tier robots and a box on wheels.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

Is it effective? That is to say, how well does BBQ correlate with future wins?

How well does 2007 BBQ rankings relate with 2008 wins? 2008 with 2009? 2009 with 2010?

Does anyone know the answer to that question? Anyone care to do the work to find out?

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

I'm not sure why anyone hasn't mentioned granite state regional yet. It is tough for 2 reasons: 1. It is a week 1 competition so unless a team has attended a week 0 competition no one has any had any practice with other bots on a field (unless they have 2 practice bots). 2. GSR has some of the oldest teams in FIRST, this year there are about 10 teams attending with a rookie season of 1996 or earlier, just to name a few: 20, 126, 151, 166, 131, 61. I know that just because they are some of the original teams does not make them the best but the competition up here can be really intense (and exciting to watch).

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

If 2056 never existed, how much would Waterloo or GTR's BBQ or SAUCE change? Probably not at all.

Every regional gives out the same number of blue banners. If 2056 didn't exist, other Canadian teams would have won 8 of those 9 blue banners (excluding the championship division winner from 2010), and the Canadian regionals BBQ and SAUCE would hardly change. However, the Candian regionals would be easier regionals, since 2056 wasn't there.

The same does not hold true for 1114. 1114 has blue banners from many events (Waterloo, GTR, Midwest, Pittsburgh, Long Island, and the Championship). If they never existing, American teams would have won Midwest, Pitsburgh, and Long Island, and there would be a net loss in BBQ and SAUCE for the Canadian regionals, and both regionals would be easier.

Thus BBQ and SAUCE reward regionals that can attract successful teams from outside their area. That's why Las Vegas has done well in this category in the past, because they get teams from all over the country.

Last year, 33 did not win any regionals, while 330 won 2. However, had we swapped positions, 33 would have easily won the Arizona and Los Angeles regionals, while 330 would not have won the Kettering and Troy Districts, because 33 was better then us.

While BBQ and SAUCE are convenient, I wouldn't use it for anything other then a talking point. Any method that only uses regional results will fall victim to this.

To evaluate how strong regionals are, I would probably compare teams performance at a regional compared to that same teams performance at the championship, against teams from all regionals. However, this is much harder to do, both for data collection, and computation.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

If my memory serves me correct. You receive a Blue Banner for winning a division. 179 won Archimedes with 233 and 71 at the 2007 Championship Event.

A regressive formula that calculates winning percentages from prior years? ie: a win in a match from 2008 counts less towards your total score than a win last year.

Also, the toughest regional is usually the one your playing in.
P.S. Michigan State Championships will be the toughest "regional". if you don't count that. then i'd prbobaly say Midwest or Finger Lakes.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

A previous look at year to year seeding showed there was very little correlation between year to year performance. This is obviously not the case for some small percentage of teams (1114, 67, etc) but your experience is the norm.http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=56631

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

I thought so.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

Thats cool, but I have yet to see a regional where the top 8 seeds were actually the top 8 teams. I think the lack of a correlation is more of an indication on how poorly teams are ranked with only a couple of qualification matches. I'd be interested in seeing correlations between selection order, but then you get into teams being biased and picking the famous teams.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

I'm not saying this is the hardest regional, but Wisconsin is probably one of the most underrated regionals. Overal, I think Wisconsin was comparable to Midwest last year, even though Midwest gets the attention and no one really talks about Wisconsin. Midwest had the edge at the top (16, 71, 111, 1625, 1732) but it wasn't that far off of Wisconsin's (111, 706, 1714, 1732, 2481). But Wisconsin had the huge advantage after the top tier as 537, 1018, 1306, 2062, 2194, 2202, 2338, 2826, 3362 were all really solid scorers and would have been 1st round picks at Midwest.

Wisconsin has all those teams returning (besides 2481 and 1018), but gets 81, 135, 234, 279, 868, 1625, and 2041 to attend this year. I always expect comeback seasons from 93, 1652, 1736, 2039 and 2506, after a disapointing last year. There is no doubt in my mind that Wisconsin will be very deep, leading to some potentially wild elimination rounds (in my opinion, the best alliance as only won 1 time in the last 4 years, while the #1 seed as won only once in the history of the Wisconsin regional).

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

Trying to gauge performance based on win/loss records (or banners or anything else) is next to useless in FIRST. Even supposing that teams are ranked after qualification rounds according to their individual performance, the alliance selection process will mean that weaker teams will be "winners" over better performing teams.

I think the question to ask is "Which regional will have the most awesome/best performing robots?"

The idea of these regionals being more or less competitive depends entirely on which teams you are allied with.

-Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

A side note: I think it would be much easier (and more accurate!) to predict the outcome of regionals appearing later in the schedule (wk 4,5,6) based on the outcomes of earlier regionals, and correlating the results of known teams, and the strengths of similar teams.

(Ie. 148/217 had identical robots in 2010. Predicting 148's future success based on 217's past success is a fairly valid comparison.)

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

494/70 have identical robots and compete at identical events and they have drastically different records. Drive team has a huge impact on performance.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

I am aware of this fact Andrew, was merely making the point that if there is a dominant robot belonging to a set of identical robots, the likelihood of the other robots in the set ALSO being dominating is significantly increased.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

Looking at the factors that could possibly rank/determine regional performance... (just for fun :) & in NO particular order)

1. Regional Rank (especially 1-10)
It often takes some skill/strategy to get to the top, I think teams that are consistently there get the most weight... a team that is "chance carried" there by alliance partners will not get as much weight as those that make it there on their own consistently.

2. Robot Blue Banners (Regional Champion & Finalist)
Winning says a fair amount. Even if you are a third pick, you in theory learn a thing or two from your alliance partners.

3. Selection Order
I would give more weight to the teams selected 2nd or 3rd (etc) than the teams actually ranked in 2nd or 3rd... This is thrown off a bit by teams that end up in the top 10 that don't have good alliance selection lists, but often the top 8 selected teams are fairly predictable with a good list.

4. Stability
More weight should be given to recent years than past years. Plenty of teams lose critical mentors, sponsors, etc and can "fall" in the ranks due to lack of structure or support. I think this is kind of what the BBQ/SAUCE does. You could take it a step further and say the last 3 years get highest weight, up to six years next, all past next...?

5. Win-Loss Record
This is probably the lowest of my weights, but there is something to teams that "know how to win". But then again its very heavily dependent on your partners & opponents, so its not as much of a predictor. And 2010 week 1 would have to be thrown out of this since winning didnt really "matter" to all teams. But it still could be a criteria

6. Rookie Startup
This is probably the hardest to figure into the numbers, but you can sometimes tell the caliber of the Rookie team by where it came from... the FRC team that is mentoring it, or the "family tree" if you will. 1511 stood a pretty good chance because it had 7 years of FIRST family tree driving it... plus was in a region with teams like 340, 191 & 1126 and could learn from them (just as an example :)). But in general, it would probably be easiest to just omit rookies from the factoring.

I'm not exactly sure how to gather all of this data, or even exactly how to rank all of these against eachother, but I would bet with all of these metrics we could come "closer" to predicting

I didn't factor Chairmans or EI in, as I think the "awards" are a whole different "game", and that there is much less of a correlation between winning CA/EI and winning the robot part of the competition :) So in that case I sort of disagree with the BBQ/SAUCE method.

Ehh just some ideas to throw on the pile :)

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

Considering 2056 has never lost a regional Greater Tornot Regional West will probably be the hardest. however they have always been with 1114 during this compeltitiona nd 1114 is in the EAsty regioankl this year. They are together in The Waterloo regional though. :eek:

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

So I hear, San Diego is pretty tough. Eh...

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

Did I hear the Michigan State Championship? Winwin

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

Yes you did, MSC all the way

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

*presses like button*

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

I second that.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

Yeah, you heard that it isn't being counted, simply due to being a qualify-for event. Those are inherently tougher than any normal regional. We went over that a while ago...

Need proof? Einstein, IRI, and to some extent the Championship divisions. Oh, and MSC itself. ;)

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

Well, Troy district goes neck-and-neck with the top regionals in the country, and Kettering district is head and shoulders above everything else.. Or does having to be from Michigan count district competitions as "qualified" events? :P

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

i think thats what they are saying ;)

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

Nah, they're open other than the MI restriction (which, personally, I think should be lifted in the event of extra spots at an event and everybody already being signed up for two). Districts count; MSC doesn't.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

I know it doesn't happen every year, but Philly looks top heavy too.

56
103
341
357
365
395
816

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

Kettering University District event

1
27
33
51
67
70
326
494
703
2337

Traverse City FIRST Robotics District Competition

66
85
123
141
201
247
901
1918
3357

Detroit FIRST Robotics District Competition

1
51
123
201
217
469
503

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

It's not *the* toughest, but I'm tossing Pittsburgh into the ring for honorable mention:

www.frclinks.com/e/pit

For a 39-team event, it's going to be really competitive. I'm looking forward to it.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

Personally, I'd say the three toughest competitions are:
Traverse City
Granite State
Troy

Three toughest regionals:
Granite State
Finger Lakes
Midwest

Three toughest districts:
Traverse City
Troy
Detroit


Yes, I know what you're thinking... Granite State?! Traverse City?! Certainly Midwest, San Diego, and Kettering have those beat out! Well, that's what I would've thought too...

Being a bit of a scouting statistics fan, I decided the best way to figure this out was to compile OPR's for the top regionals. So, I averaged the 2010 OPR (multiplied by 8 to adjust for typical scoring difference) and 2009 OPR for each team at the regionals, then averaged those to find the competition average.

To reduce the error resulting from rookie teams not having data yet, I calculated a "composite" of the competition average... the average of the "including rookies average" and the "excluding rookies average."

Now, I'm not saying that this method is perfect; however, I do think it's a better indicator of competition strength than BBQ or SAUCE... I attached the excel file for those who are intrigued by the results. I only took the time to include the regionals that have already been proposed as being the top ones.


I think the reason why GSR has essentially passed under the radar on this thread is that it doesn't have as many of the "top tier/top 50" teams that other competitions have. Simply put though, it does have a tremendous wealth of second tier teams! I think the level of competition is less about a few teams standing head-and-shoulders above all, and more about the competitors as a whole being skilled. For this reason I was happy to see GSR and Traverse City at the top...

Honestly though, I just love watching the powerhouses play! If I could watch any webcast, it'd be the one with the most powerhouses... if I could attend any competition, it'd be the one with the best field as a whole.


Many thanks to Team 2834 (and by extension 1114), for their awesome scouting database from which I took these numbers! :-)

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

Not true.

2009 WAT, 1114 was NOT in attendance. 2609 (a rookie!) seeded #1, chose 2056, and proceeded to win together, without 1114's help.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

I agree with you on GSR. Some regionals have the top 5 teams in the nation and then a lot of lower tier teams to fill the other 19 elimination slots! For a week one event GSR has some heavy hitters that lead to 57 points scored in last years four final matches! Out of the 6 robots in the finals 5 of them made it to ATL and all of them played in the eliminations. I'm not saying it is one of the top regionals, but it belongs up there every year!

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

It sounds like he meant that 1114 and 2056 have always been together at GTR, not at Waterloo. 2056 is a phenomenal team and has been highly competitive without forming an alliance with 1114... That said, when the two play together on an alliance at a tournament like GTR or Waterloo, they're essentially unstoppable!

2056 will also be attending FLR, I believe.

As always, I'll be eager to see what both teams have produced! :-)

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

I just did Finger Lakes and Midwest, as they are well known as top tier regionals.


2010 Finger Lakes Regional (74 matches):

Total points scored by winning/tied teams in qualifying matches: 295
Average: 4.10

Total points scored by losing/tired teams in qualifying matches: 102
Average: 1.40

Difference in match points: 2.70


2010 Midwest Regional (70 matches):

Total points scored by winning/tied teams in qualifying matches: 327
Average: 4.70

Total points scored by losing/tired teams in qualifiying matches: 93
Average: 1.30

Difference in match points: 3.40


Midwest obviously had much more high scoring robot alliances yet at FLR the matches were tighter in scoring.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

I went to both regionals last year and FLR was better top to bottom but Midwest had better teams at the top.
Judging the best regional is really an objective thing beforehand.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

2056 is at FLR, WAT, and GTRW
1114 is at PIT, WAT, and GTRE

1075 is at FLR, WAT, and GTRE. I'll be watching with excitement to see what 2011 has in store for them.

1114 has shared 7 of 2056's 8 victories (2009 WAT being the exception). I've had the pleasure of watching all of them first hand.

Both teams put out astounding robots each year, and as you say, when put together, they're nearly unstoppable.

2009 GTR, when 188, 610, and 1305 won Finals 1 against 1114, 2056, 2185, but then had a robot malfunction on 610, and 188's robot missed coming back from their timeout in time to be on the field for Finals 2 was the closest anyone has come since 2007.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

So, what did we decide? :)

Actually, regardless of where it is, I think a week 1 regional is toughest to win.

Nobody really knows how to play the game. No one knows for sure what strategy will play out, because you cannot know what other strategies will be tried. All of the kinks still need worked out with the fields, the scoring, calling penalties, etc. A brilliant plan today could be turned to mush in 2 weeks. A team that has really hit the design and strategy can walk away with a win, but that is tough to do.

There is a huge level of learning that week 2+ teams get from watching week 1 events.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

The toughest regional is the one you're competing in.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

We've never won a regional that we didn't compete in.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

Wow you guys have an amazing recipe for success! :eek:

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

X2

We're really at the point where it's ALL objective and any regional is a tough one.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

Alamo seems pretty hard this year with 16, 148, and 118 all there...

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

Good to see some love for FLR, it's always a fun regional.
(Hate, HATE, the stands though. Soooo static-y)

I'm pretty sure I read all the thread, but since I jumped around pages, I'm not certain. Has anyone posted the BBQ/SAUCE numbers for EVERY regional in one post? Or are the numbers all still scattered throughout?

Anywho.
Team 639 is (read: I am) looking to go to Nat'ls this year.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

Northwest Utilities regional in hartford, CT always produces team that go to championships and go far, Uberbots, and last year's champions Bobcat Robotics!!!

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

Since 2006, 177 has won two world championships, and been to Einstein 5 times. In that same time, they've only won the Connecticut regional once, and in the other years, never made it past the semi-finals. That either means that Connecticut is significantly harder then the world championship, or that 177 has continued to improve significantly every year after the Connecticut regional.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

I believe if you look at the data you we see 177 lost to the eventual champion in the last 2 CT regionals in the semis as well as both regionals we competed at in 2007. In 2008 we didn't make the elims, deservedly because we were awful at Hartford.

We have also done only one regional the last 3 years and the generally and it takes the time at the regional to figure out what we got wrong and correct it within our witholding allowence for the next event. If we stopped improving we wouldn't have done what we've been able to the last 5 years.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

I walked away from FLR thinking it was actually a little down this year (it was still pretty bottom heavy) but they have set the standard for every other regional to match with 8 triple digit scores (four of them did come in elims). It might be because defense is starting to show up a little more this week as well.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

Wisconsin also had 8 triple digit scores.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

That doesn't surprise me.
As the competition went on Florida started getting more triple digit scores as was San Deigo.

One vent that I have huge expectations of because it's a week six event and has only two rookies and many many competitive teams is Philadelphia. Many regionals have alot of teams that don't belong in the elims, to be blunt, but there will probably be double digit teams who deserve to make the elims and will miss out in Phili due to the level of competition there.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

I agree with Akash on that one. Philly is brings great competition year in and year out. There are many good teams and it is going to be pretty difficult to win.

Re: toughest regional in 2011?
 

I have to say that Troy district will be very hard this year. By the time that comes around it will be everyone's 2nd comp and for 7 of those teams it will be their 3rd and for 3 it wil be their 4th comp.