Quote:
Originally Posted by Alpha Beta
Why would 100 teams per division be the target number? It requires 2 teams to play surrogate matches. Would much rather see them cap the event at 96, or 102. When you have a surrogate match your stats lag behind the other teams in your division in real time. Real time stats seem to be important to FIRST considering they now include current rank on the live match scoring display.
Avoiding surrogates does not appear to be a goal however. Of the 6 years we have qualified for champs, the number of teams in the division has never been divisible by 6.
Archimedes 2009 (Atlanta) = 87 teams
Curie 2010 (Atlanta) = 86 teams
Curie 2011 (St. Louis) = 88 teams
Curie 2012 (St. Louis) = 100 teams
Newton 2013 (St. Louis) = 100 teams
Newton 2014 (St. Louis) = 100 teams
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In 2012 they played 9 qual matches so there were no surrogates. Now with 10 matches there are 2 surrogates per division in 167 matches.
If they like the 10 match format with the all day Thursday quals they may just plan for 102 per division. I don't think FIRST came into this year planning on 10 qual matches at Champs. Last year they were clearly planning on 9 matches but had to cut it to 8 due to belaying, manual disc count, etc... I think the pits can take 8 more teams, and the new schedules can take 3 more matches for an even 170 matches per division. MAR championships just did 83 qual matches on a Friday (which I am pretty sure is a record for qual matches in a day).