[Andrew Blair]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

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.

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.