**FIRST EMAIL**/A note on the FRC scoring system

[sanddrag]

Greetings Teams:

As the FIRST community goes into the third week of the 2005 FRC regional events, I would like to share our thoughts and the latest information on this year’s scoring system.

I would first like to apologize for the problems with the system during the first two weeks. FIRST takes full responsibility for these problems and we deeply regret any impact they may have created for our teams, referees, and volunteers.

I would also like you to know that FIRST is working as hard as possible on a solution that will be implemented for week three. In addition to the automated scoring system, FIRST will provide a proven backup scoring system that will be used to check and validate the automatic scoring system. FIRST is committed to ensuring everyone has the best possible experience at the FRC regional events.

As you know, one problem area has been the availability and accuracy of information on match results. We have accurate information on the award winners and the top eight alliances for the first two weeks. These results will be posted on the FIRST web site. After reviewing the situation, we unfortunately are not one hundred percent certain we can reliably retrieve results for all matches played, and so, will not be posting these results to the FIRST web site.

The feedback from the teams and spectators from the first two weeks of events has been great. FIRST would like to commend all the teams for the quality of play, the excitement of the matches, and for realizing the vision of the 2005 FRC Game Design Committee. I would also like to acknowledge the tremendous job of the teams and referees in working within the rules of this year’s game.

We thank you for your patience and understanding as we’ve addressed the scoring system problems. We can't wait to see the remaining events. Keep up the great work and have a good time!

Take care,

Paul Shay
Executive Director
FIRST

[Koko Ed]

I hope they post them soon. I got Fantasy FIRST leagues to score.

[Greg Needel]

the FIRST community can thank Joe Ross and the RITFIRST crew for the backup scoring system as it was a side result of stuff not working at the FLR

[Matt Leese]

Originally Posted by Greg Needel

the FIRST community can thank Joe Ross and the RITFIRST crew for the backup scoring system as it was a side result of stuff not working at the FLR

While I'm not totally sure what the "backup scoring system" is, Joe was working on a spreadsheet here when we couldn't get the ranking system to work (it eventually worked here so we dropped the spreadsheet except as a backup). This spreadsheet was requested by FIRST the other day so that could be what they're using.

Matt

[Kevin Sevcik]

I was just in on a teleconference, and I beleive the spreadsheet is what they're using. It's since been updated a bit to improve its functionality.

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

I was just in on a teleconference, and I beleive the spreadsheet is what they're using. It's since been updated a bit to improve its functionality.

If I might inquire, which regional was it in which they decided to go with the spreadsheet? I was in on the 7:00 teleconference, and it seemed like they were all trying to get the Hatch system to work--did someone encounter an insurmountable issue afterward?

We're trying to make contingency plans for Waterloo, and would love all the information and feedback we can get.

[Josh Hambright]

Okay i can give some un official reports from in the field updates on this issue.

I just got back from the set up of the Boilermaker regional. And the scoring system is up and running, however i dont know how the match results will be working, but i do know the real time scoring apears to be up and running and the scoring system has been updated to version 1.5 as of tonight.

We spent about 8 hours tonight working on getting the system up and running, about 3 hours were spent working with FIRST to get some bugs worked out of an update so that everything apears to be working better, hopefully we will have a better idea of how everthing is working tomorrow after some practice matches.

Thanks to Tom at i think FIRST for working with us tonight. Hopefully David Kelly and I can not break the scoring system tomorrow

[Kevin Sevcik]

I was assuming this was the backup system. As I heard Paul Zimboni commenting that he'd scored half of some regional with Joe's spreadsheet. Atleast It sounded an awful lot like it. And the whole shebang coincides with Joe asking me to check over said spreadsheet.

[Joe Johnson]

I have written this spreadsheet file. I would appreciate folks beating on it to see if it makes any mistakes in scoring, ranking, etc.

Thanks.

Joe J.

[David Kelly]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

I have written this spreadsheet file. I would appreciate folks beating on it to see if it makes any mistakes in scoring, ranking, etc.

Thanks.

Joe J.

Joe, you are awesome! after what Josh, Molly and I were dealing with tonight, we will defentally have this up and going too.


Thank you much!!

[Joe Johnson]

Please Please test it. I did my best, but anyone who knows Excel, knows that it is pretty ugly at some things. This one is uglier that usual because I didn't want to use Macros or VB to make some of the uglier bits go away.

Also, I wanted it to allow for relatively easy cut and pastes to from the "Hatch" pages FIRST publishes (or DID publish, I think they took them down). I would have never put that extra line between the Matches on the MATCH DATA sheet except that that is how it comes into Excel if you copy and paste the page from usfirst.org. By the way, when you cut and paste, go to an intermediate sheet first rather than trying to paste right on that page. Also, try using "paste special" to paste the values only.

Like I said, it is pretty ugly, but I think it gets the sums right and implements the logic that FIRST published for ranking teams.

Keep me honest here.

Joe J.

[Greg Needel]

just want to give credit where credit is due there are other spreadsheets that is first is using so thanks to whomever made them.....

[Kevin Sevcik]

All I can say at the moment is that it's not liking OpenOffice.org. It seems to be choking on some aspect of the OFFSETs.