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Unread 08-04-2014, 13:42
Lil' Lavery Lil' Lavery is offline
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AKA: Sean Lavery
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Re: Computer generated initial alliances

Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan Anderson View Post
I don't think FIRST was behind the Alliance Algorithm of Doom. The software developer was told to change it after the first week's matchups were universally recognized as being very bad. It got a teeny bit better, but the underlying method of splitting the teams into three groups based on team number wouldn't go away.
From everything I recall, you're correct. FIRST was not aware that the algorithm functioned that way until it was unveiled. The "pooling" issue persisted throughout the entire season, including championship. It was decidedly worse in week one, and improved as the season progressed. VCU (week 1 in 2007) was easily the worst schedule I've ever seen in FRC history. The teams in the "low number pool" played against the same opponent in the low number pool every single match (ie 116 faced 122 every match). Same for the high number pool teams (1541 faced 1598 every match). The low team's opponent from the middle pool would become their partner in their next match, but the pairing didn't remain constant. It has set the bar for absolutely awful match pairing algorithms.