New Qualification and seed method.

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by DjMaddius

Balancing may not be as difficult as you think it will be. Check out this:
http://youtu.be/-AMaqqmoLgQ?t=1m27s

28 inches away from center and 2 batteries on one end will still be balanced. I'm sure all of you know, those batteries have some weight to them also. So, balancing may not be too difficult though getting 2 bots on it at the end of the match quickly may be. Especially from opposite ends of the field being both bots getting on from each end instead of one following the other on directly behind.

So, the bridge stays balanced with a moment of up to 60 ft*lbs of torque (assuming 13ish lb batteries). However, that still means you've got to precisely position your robot with 5" or so (assuming a long robot with the edge of it's frame at one extreme), and I wonder how the dynamics of a dynamic ramp coming from tilted to horizontal plays with that number.

[mathking]

Try to think of getting other robots to balance with you on the bridge as an engineering challenge for you. If your robot is good at it, then you can probably get the coopertition bonus in most of your matches.

[Greg Leighton]

Figured I'd give this thread a bump.

Now that week one has passed what does everyone think about how the ranking system has worked thus far?

What do you think about the coopertition bridge and how big of a factor it plays in team rank?

What do you think of any of the pre-conceived notions you had before?

Glancing over the week one regionals I see that 5 of the 8 had a top seed with the highest number of coopertition points. Considering the number one seed won in every regional except Alamo, I am of the opinion that the coopertition bridge is very important maybe even the top objective in any qualifying match. As powerful of a ranking factor the bridge is, I probably wouldn't change it because it adds to the excitement of this game. Many times during Kettering I could get excited even if a team was about to lose a match because they were going for a last second coopertition balance.

As for hybrid, I think it is important without the seeding implications and even more important with them, further adding to the excitement of hybrid. I think its a good metric of a quality robot so I agree with using it as the first tie breaker in seeding.

[JABot67]

Originally Posted by Greg Leighton

Glancing over the week one regionals I see that 5 of the 8 had a top seed with the highest number of coopertition points. Considering the number one seed won in every regional except Alamo, I am of the opinion that the coopertition bridge is very important maybe even the top objective in any qualifying match.

You guys definitely had the right idea at Kettering with going for the Coopertition bridge every match. My jaw dropped when I realized Friday night that the EngiNERDS had a higher seeding score than us with almost half their points coming from Coopertition. We only had 2 Coopertition points on Friday but were undefeated.

I do think that if every team tries their best for the Coopertition bridge in the qualification matches, then the 1st seeds would win less often. 4161 won San Diego by focusing just on the Coopertition bridge in quals, but something tells me this was because the best scorers were situated outside the top 8 and therefore were split up. If 4161 and Code Orange tried going against an alliance with 2 good scorers, I don't see them winning.

[Nemo]

I generally like this system. They wanted to make coopertition really important, and they have succeeded in doing it in a really fun way.

It is a little unfortunate that teams with good allies (hybrid scorers) get a tiebreaker boost in addition to the wins they are likely to get by having good allies. But I prefer this to basing tiebreakers on opponents' scores, which creates incentives to score on oneself. This way, a team has the ability to directly impact their own tiebreakers by having a good Hybrid mode, which is great.

Teams with tough schedules have the significant benefit of good teams to balance with on the coopertition bridge. It is great that there are seeding benefits for easy OR hard schedules.

[Jaxom]

We understood the importance of the Coopertition bridge ahead of time & were ready to deal with it. It obviously helped; we had 26 qualification points (with 1 loss) as compared to the undefeated #2 seed with 22 QPs.

I like having the 2-alliance interaction requirement; I think that adds significantly to the game. It's a huge factor, but I personally would like to have seen the importance be a bit lower than it is. Maybe have wins be 3 points (or even 4) and keep the coopertition points where they are at 2 for a balance and 1 for a fully-supported attempt.

[mott]

I agree 100% with Jaxom...this aspect of the game and "coopertition" with the opposing alliance is interesting and adds to the game but the importance is just too high in my opinion. Maybe I'm just too competative but I still like to see winning be the most influential factor in the ranking systems. Jaxom's suggestion of 3 points for a win and only 2 for a coopertition might be the right mix...There's always IRI!