Posted by Michael.
Student on team #188, The Blizzard, from Woburn Collegiate Institute and Ontario Power Generation.
Posted on 3/17/2000 7:35 AM MST
In Reply to: Randomize is best posted by Joe Johnson on 3/16/2000 7:37 PM MST:
: I would say that FIRST should just randomly assign teams to the four groups.
: Yes, there is a chance of the second or third or fourth best alliance being eliminated on the way the the Final Four, but this is not anything new.
: The ranking as it is is not perfect. It is just as likely that second best alliance plays the best alliance prior to the finals. Similar fates are likely to befall the 3rd and 4th best alliances which are often eliminated prior to the semi-finals.
: I really think that this would be a great system for FIRST to adopt.
: As to scouting, I think that teams could greatly scale back scouting of teams from the off group. Teams could more or less limit scouting to the semi-finals & finals from each group. If teams knew which group they would be up against in the Final Four (say A plays B and C plays D) this would simply scouting even more.
: Joe J.
But...you see, top ranked teams, i would think, don't pick an alliance purely on QP average and rank right? So you could have a wicked 'bot, and have low QP, it happens. However, you still can get picked the way it is now right? The way it is now, every team has an equal chance at getting into the finals. And, even if it is randomized, there still is a possibility that a lot of the 'good' teams will be put in one single division. And there is no way to stop that, because the divisions can not be assigned by 'goodness', because FIRST doesn't work like that. They also can't be assigned from regional results, because for most teams, regionals is a warm up, and things are still getting fixed. So QP means a little less in regionals. So with 4 divisions, there really is no fair way to divide up the teams. I'd rather chance doing well against 250 teams then risk being in a division of like 80 or 90, with the top 5 teams in it...right?
Mike
Team 188 - Blizzard
www.team188.com