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Unread 01-04-2007, 08:47
Travis Hoffman's Avatar Unsung FIRST Hero
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Championship Event - Where the "Random" Match Sorting Really "Shines"

So now that everyone has had a chance to experience the joy and fun that is the patently-horrible match sorting algorithm at the regionals (why can't we have a truly random algorithm implemented for the Championship again? - We've had five weeks to work on one - is this parasitic algorithm that much bored into the flesh of the otherwise great scoring software that it takes more time than that to dig it out?), let's take a theoretical look at one of the as-yet unsettled divisional team lists for the Championship and see how the teams break down. I took this from the most recent Divisional List posted in Koko Ed's 2007 Championship Divisions thread.

Code:
Newton Team Categories
 
V = Veteran
M = Mid-Level
Y = Young  
 
V    M    Y
20  357  1305
34  365  1341
48  395  1418
60  456  1502
67  469  1510
74  498  1523
86  527  1535
97  558  1563
108 612  1617
121 648  1647
126 694  1675
141 716  1700
159 771  1714
176 830  1732
180 862  1811
195 910  1850
224 967  1872
234 1001 1929
246 1015 2010
269 1033 2046
291 1087 2067
314 1114 2100
330 1137 2137
339 1155 2182
343 1218 2252
   1270 2283

That veteran list is packed with a much higher quantity of successful 2007 teams relative to the other 2 lists, so if this division were actually finalized, "relatively inexperienced" teams like 365, 469, and 1114 would be ecstatic to reap the bountiful harvest of favorable qualifying round matchups coming their way.

365 is right on the edge of entering the "veteran" category, lowering their odds of a favorable qualifying match list. Any more higher-numbered teams signing up for the Championship and entering Newton severely jeopardizes their favorable status as a mid-level team. How messed up is a system that could potentially have a team's mentors hoping for FEWER higher-numbered teams signing up for the Championship? I know everyone on MOE is above that kind of thinking (congrats on Philly Chairman's!), but just the fact that a FIRST-sponsored algorithm could potentially introduce anti-FIRST thoughts in teams, well it's just so BLAH. BLAH in action - there are a few strong mid and high-number teams who have admitted to me they like the extra artificial "kick" this algorithm gives to their chances during qualifying. It's a guilty pleasure for them, I think. I can't necessarily blame them for feeling that way - it's hard to resist denouncing something that is to your benefit. The low-numbered vets see this and are quietly frustrated.....

WE WANT AS MANY TEAMS AS POSSIBLE TO ATTEND THESE EVENTS, AND WE WANT TO KNOW THE MATCHUPS WILL BE AS RANDOM AS POSSIBLE!

The odds of quality mid-level and high-numbered teams (who need and should receive no artificial help) seeing quality partners at the Championship during qualifying will be much greater relative to what they experienced at the regionals, and it was already bad enough at the regionals.

It will be interesting to see just how many lower-numbered teams reach the finals on Einstein.....

Could anyone with insider knowledge report on the current status of FIRST's efforts to correct this self-inflicted gaping flesh wound? I expect the Championship Team Forums to be filled with comments from team representatives who are vehemently opposed to the current algorithm. If FIRST wanted to minimize this type of chatter to provide more time for other less-publicized topics of discussion, I'd suggest they send out a communication prior to the Championship explaining what algorithm will be in place in Atlanta. If the same algorithm will be used, at least people will know. I'd also like a verbal commitment from them that this abomination will be purged from the program in 2008 before it comes time for veteran-numbered teams to start deciding how much money they will spend on official FIRST events next year.....

As a final thought, what are the chances/harm of FIRST exposing this software to other qualified professionals on teams throughout the community? If you admit there is a problem but feel you don't have enough time and could use some more manpower to revise it, then I'm sure many in the community would love to come to your aid to help iron out the wrinkles in this stuff.
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Last edited by Travis Hoffman : 01-04-2007 at 10:47.
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Unread 01-04-2007, 09:25
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Re: Championship Event - Where the "Random" Match Sorting Really "Shines"

One easy solution to the tiering problem: Rather than split the teams into 3 tiers based on a sorted order, just randomize your input list so that the three groups will be approximately equal in quality. You would still have the problem of never playing with anyone in your tier as an ally, but at least you wouldn't have the big helping of rookies and hurting of veterans.

So rather than
Code:
1 4 7
2 5 8
3 6 9
You might have lists like
Code:
1 6 5
3 9 4
7 2 8
On average, they will even out to have the same number of powerhouse teams.

The whole tiering thing seems to be a wierd solution to a problem that didn't really exist anyway. Now instead of a few teams sometimes legitametely complaining that they got a bad deal in the pairings, you've got a whole group (the veteran teams) who get a bad deal, and they can prove it.
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Unread 03-04-2007, 10:45
Jacob Plicque Jacob Plicque is offline
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Re: Championship Event - Where the "Random" Match Sorting Really "Shines"

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bongle View Post
One easy solution to the tiering problem: Rather than split the teams into 3 tiers based on a sorted order, just randomize your input list so that the three groups will be approximately equal in quality. You would still have the problem of never playing with anyone in your tier as an ally, but at least you wouldn't have the big helping of rookies and hurting of veterans.

So rather than
Code:
1 4 7
2 5 8
3 6 9
You might have lists like
Code:
1 6 5
3 9 4
7 2 8
On average, they will even out to have the same number of powerhouse teams.

The whole tiering thing seems to be a wierd solution to a problem that didn't really exist anyway. Now instead of a few teams sometimes legitametely complaining that they got a bad deal in the pairings, you've got a whole group (the veteran teams) who get a bad deal, and they can prove it.
I suggest a modification to your idea which sorts the teams the same way as the divisions at the championships.
Current method
V M R
1 504 1207
2 505 1208
3 506 1209
A V team can never play another V team in the random pairings
Division Method
A B C
1 2 3
4 5 6 Low Pool
7 8 9
501 502 503
504 505 506 Mid Pool
507 508 509
1201 1202 1203
1204 1205 1206 High Pool
1207 1208 1209
This distributes the allegedly strong lower number teams (< 400) into three groups. Now a veteran team will still be paired with a midrank and a rookie in its division but it has the possibility of playing against 67% of the veteran teams

Last edited by Jacob Plicque : 03-04-2007 at 21:50.
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Unread 01-04-2007, 09:38
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Re: Championship Event - Where the "Random" Match Sorting Really "Shines"

Quote:
Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman View Post
That veteran list is packed with a much higher quantity of successful 2007 teams relative to the other 2 lists, so if this division were actually finalized, "relatively inexperienced" teams like 365, 469, 1114, 1305 should be ecstatic to reap the bountiful harvest of favorable qualifying round matchups coming their way.
We (365) have been at the first team in the M pool at every regional this year. I looked into it after FLR and I knew a week in advance going into Philly. I think this "Team Number Fairness" algorithm is most unfair. I probably was the most vocal critic of the algorithm at Philly (I talked the scorekeeper's ear off and told pretty much anyone else who would listen). I noted the partner repetition, cycle (some teams got only 1 match off between matches), and the unfair advantage received by teams (like mine) simply based on their team number (not even years of experience). In another odd twist of the algorithm, the first teams in every pool seem to always have the first match generally again the second team in every pool. Is this meant to showcase the "algorithm determined Best teams". At Philly, the first cycle of the Match List literally went:

first in every pool vs second in every pool
third vs fourth
5th vs 6th
etc... for basically the WHOLE first cycle, so it didn't even try to "randomize" the first cycle

However your list is slightly wrong. The V pool is the last to fill up so 357 is currently at the top of the M pool. I know this because this is the only reason 365 was always in the M pool. If one team hadn't dropped out (tragic story I don't want to share w/o their permission) from Philly we would have had 45 teams (equally divisible by 3) and 365 would be at the end of the V pool. Same thing at FLR if it had 36 teams instead of 35 assuming the 36th team had # > 365.

I know FIRST probably will not fix this by Championship, but I hope they will by next year. I suggest pregenerating optimized random matrices (ie check all combinations) with constraints for cycle time for every combination of number of teams at a regional and reasonable number of matches. Then randomize the team list to matrix spots and drop them in the corresponding spots in the matrix.
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Last edited by The Lucas : 01-04-2007 at 10:13. Reason: Added more
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Unread 01-04-2007, 10:05
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Re: Championship Event - Where the "Random" Match Sorting Really "Shines"

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Lucas View Post

However your list is slightly wrong. The V pool is the last to fill up so 357 is currently at the top of the M pool. I know this because this is the only reason 365 was always in the M pool. If one team hadn't dropped out (tragic story I don't want to share w/o their permission) from Philly we would have had 45 teams (equally divisible by 3) and 365 would be at the end of the V pool. Same thing at FLR if it had 36 teams instead of 35 assuming the 36th team had # > 365.
Fixed in the original post - thanks. 357 - welcome to the mid-level euphoria. And 1305, well you guys are just flipping out right now, you inexperienced youngins, you . To now have the chance at seeing the algorithm put you with that somewhat-inexperienced 1114 all day long? Go Canada.

Quote:
I know FIRST probably will not fix this by Championship, but I hope they will by next year. I suggest pregenerating optimized random matrices (ie check all combinations) with constraints for cycle time for every combination of number of teams at a regional and reasonable number of matches. Then randomize the team list to matrix spots and drop them in the corresponding spots in the matrix.
Thank you for the honest and respectful feedback and commentary.
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Unread 17-04-2007, 13:45
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Re: Championship Event - Where the "Random" Match Sorting Really "Shines"

Well, not to whine and complain, but considering the fact that during the championships, my team was paired with one of the same teams for 3 of our matches in Curie. I don't think it was that random, considering that there were about 80 other teams in the division, and we were never against that team.
Granted one of the matches was during the practice day, but even at Regionals I have found similar things happening.
And to reitterate, many of the same teams do win reoccuringly because of the pairings, and many wonderful teams lose because of the same reason.
However, it does help to have some of these pairings because some of the teams just don't have the experience. Then again, rookie teams win regioanls so, it all depends on the team, I guess.
I am not "hating on F.I.R.S.T." I am just voicing what I think it true.
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Last edited by vic burg : 17-04-2007 at 13:47. Reason: added last line
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Unread 19-04-2007, 08:06
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Re: Championship Event - Where the "Random" Match Sorting Really "Shines"

From Team Update #21:

1) The Director of FRC is very aware of the concerns regarding the Alliance Selection
algorithm used throughout the 2007 competition season. Unfortunately, we ran out of time
and the resources necessary to properly implement a change and meanwhile mitigate any
risk to the FIRST Championship.

********************************
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Unread 01-04-2007, 15:23
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Re: Championship Event - Where the "Random" Match Sorting Really "Shines"

No matter how anyone can try to make this work and try to make a system to make everyone happy, it won't work. There is no way everyone can be happy. Someone will and moan to FIRST about this, and FIRST will try to do something to change it, and more people will and moan about that. There is no freakin' way everyone can be happy.

I would love to see the Championship Event, as a true Championship, and have everything based off merit, but with the way FIRST is set up. Its not gonna happen. Unless the game was 1 v 1, these bad alliance pairings, and the likes are gonna continue to happen. In life, there will always be a flaw, there will always be a weak wheel, its just a matter of what you do with it, and how you can use them to make it all work.
Prime example. No one ever thought a dumper bot would make it to Einstein last year. Look what happened. One fell into 25's laps, and we successfully used them in a strategy few had used during the year, and ultimately, got us as far as we did.

I do hate the current system, and think there is a better way to approach it, but with what FIRST is trying to do, what there goals are, how it is now, is just dandy.

(more to come of my thoughts about this...still deciding/doing a paper)
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Unread 16-04-2007, 10:52
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Re: Championship Event - Where the "Random" Match Sorting Really "Shines"

The championships are over, and I thought it might make more sense to comment about the match schedule on an existing thread, rather than a generic championships likes/dislikes thread.

We were on Curie and it appears that the schedule achieved what it set out to do. A few observations:

1) Old and new teams were very mixed in the final standings and the alliances that were formed were all very close to each other. A little better strategy or luck and any of the alliances formed on Curie could have won that field. Watching an 8th seeded alliance win it all on Einstein, I have to assume the situation was similar on the other fields.

2) There were 8 rookies in the Championship alliances. For the record we teamed with a rookie at all three of our events this year. I don't know, but I doubt there have ever been this many rookies in the eliminations since the four division system started.

3) This game was very much a game of alliances. No machine was able to dominate unless their partners could help in some fashion. We won many rounds last year almost single handedly. We did not win any rounds this year unless we had help from our alliance partners, I suspect most people had similar experiences.

4) The match schedule employed seems to increase the likelihood of having a tough time in the qualification rounds. At one regional we almost breezed through quals because of excellent partners. At the next regional we struggled to win half our qual matches and we were almost left out of the elmins despite some excellent scoring by our team. At the championships we had a lot of close matches and won with a lot of good play by our partners. According to our scouting there were half a dozen teams on Curie ranked below 50 that belonged on the short list for picking. I know there have always been a couple really good picks way down in the standings, but almost a third of the top 24 sounds like a lot.

5) For the record I don't like the algorithm because in a field of 86 teams we should not have to face the same team twice. We were against one low numbered team twice, we were with a mid numbered team twice, and we were against and then with four more teams. That means we saw 29 different teams out of 86 when we could have seen 35, if the algorithm focused more on mixing up the match pairings.

FIRST seems to have accomplished what they wanted with the algorithm (see 1 and 2). But by limiting the variety of partners too many teams get locked into unfortunate schedules.
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Unread 16-04-2007, 10:59
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Re: Championship Event - Where the "Random" Match Sorting Really "Shines"

I saw a lot of teams get bitten by the "random" algorithm monster again. This hurt a lot of great teams dearly... some super-great teams were waaay overlooked. Some teams weren't even given a chance to impress because they had partners that couldn't compliment each other... but that's how the game's played.

For the record, team 648 played against team 16 three times. Of 86 teams, what are the chances? I don't know the stats like that for other teams, but I'm going to assume we weren't the only ones that that happened to.
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Unread 16-04-2007, 15:26
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Re: Championship Event - Where the "Random" Match Sorting Really "Shines"

Quote:
Originally Posted by Budda648 View Post
I saw a lot of teams get bitten by the "random" algorithm monster again. This hurt a lot of great teams dearly... some super-great teams were waaay overlooked. Some teams weren't even given a chance to impress because they had partners that couldn't compliment each other... but that's how the game's played.

For the record, team 648 played against team 16 three times. Of 86 teams, what are the chances? I don't know the stats like that for other teams, but I'm going to assume we weren't the only ones that that happened to.
yes 540 got bitten really hard at championship and regionals when they had to go against 539 every single match.
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Unread 16-04-2007, 13:41
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Re: Championship Event - Where the "Random" Match Sorting Really "Shines"

Quote:
Originally Posted by AcesPease
FIRST seems to have accomplished what they wanted with the algorithm (see 1 and 2). But by limiting the variety of partners too many teams get locked into unfortunate schedules.
Again, just to set the record straight, the match pairing algorithm is NOT what FIRST wanted. It was implemented by the software developer without the concurrence of FIRST. It was not corrected during the season, despite multiple FIRST requests.

FIRST knows the match pairing algorithm is a problem. They know it is an intolerable situation that caused significant problems with allowing teams to fairly display their capabilities and performance. It will NOT be continued next year.

-dave
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Unread 16-04-2007, 15:33
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Re: Championship Event - Where the "Random" Match Sorting Really "Shines"

Quote:
Originally Posted by dlavery View Post
Again, just to set the record straight, the match pairing algorithm is NOT what FIRST wanted. It was implemented by the software developer without the concurrence of FIRST. It was not corrected during the season, despite multiple FIRST requests.

FIRST knows the match pairing algorithm is a problem. They know it is an intolerable situation that caused significant problems with allowing teams to fairly display their capabilities and performance. It will NOT be continued next year.

-dave
I hear what you’re saying Dave but it was a problem from the first day of the first regional and it was never fixed and it should have been.

You can blame the developer all you want but the buck has to stop with FIRST.
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Unread 16-04-2007, 16:08
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Re: Championship Event - Where the "Random" Match Sorting Really "Shines"

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Originally Posted by IndySam
You can blame the developer all you want but the buck has to stop with FIRST.
Perhaps. But I have to give them a little bit of slack when they tell the developer to make a change to the system (for which they are paying a significant price), and the developer just says "no - I won't do it. My way is so much better, and you (the customer) are just not smart enough to understand that."




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Unread 16-04-2007, 16:27
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Re: Championship Event - Where the "Random" Match Sorting Really "Shines"

Quote:
Originally Posted by dlavery View Post
Perhaps. But I have to give them a little bit of slack when they tell the developer to make a change to the system (for which they are paying a significant price), and the developer just says "no - I won't do it. My way is so much better, and you (the customer) are just not smart enough to understand that."
I have an idea: We all can send this developer a note, tell him how much we liked or did not like match generating program he wrote.

Is it appropriate to post his email address?

Andy B.
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