Einstein 2013

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by Abhishek R

Using the OPR's recorded in the FRC Tracker app (This is all from CMP), I got the following total combined OPR's for each Einstein alliance:

Archimedes: 179.9

Curie: 189.9

Galileo: 146.7

Newton: 185.9

Obviously, OPR told us nothing about anything at all, as usual.

While the OPRs from the individual divisions may not have been useful, probably because of differences in division-wide strategies (e.g. whether there are FCSs), the OPRs are very useful in predicting matches within divisions. I haven't checked our results yet, but it looks like our match predictions in Curie were correct in 80% of the matches. That's statistically well beyond significantly different from pure chance.

Also, OPRs are very useful when drawn from a common pool such as a regional or division. Using direct quantitative statistics in our two regionals, we were able to predict the winners of 6 of 7 elimination rounds in both regionals. The only exceptions were 1) the 4 vs 5 round (obviously expected to be the closest most unpredictable) and 2) when the top alliance suffered a mechanical failure for two matches.

Anyone who ignores the predictive power of OPR or other statistics does so at their own peril.

[Clem1640]

Originally Posted by chantal68

I appreciate the explanation. My concern with this is the psychological boon to G and bust to N. That makes a difference even though it's virtually impossible to calculate and certainly had to affect the 3rd match.

I can accept the possibility of human error, however it goes back to the whole issue of the difficulty of scoring this year. It's been problematic from the start and I hope that FIRST will work hard to improve a scoring method for whatever next year's game turns out to be.

The psychological effect was pretty darned significant. In a moment, we went from finalist with robot on the field and ready to a tied semi-finalist. It was a rude change.

That said, what was done was fair and right. Shocking as it was, I cannot complain about the outcome.

Congratulations to Galileo champions 1241, 610 & 1477. You earned this!

[dcarr]

Originally Posted by chantal68

Ha, yes! Is there a like button for this post?

lol, It's called the reputation button.

When it comes to totalling scores with manual scoring, in the future it wouldn't hurt to have a few folks check it by hand and by calculator. The audience can deal with another loop of cupid shuffle (or insert the sponsor speeches into the time slots used for totalling scores, as others have suggested).

[George A.]

Originally Posted by Clem1640

The psychological effect was pretty darned significant. In a moment, we went from finalist with robot on the field and ready to a tied semi-finalist. It was a rude change.

That said, what was done was fair and right. Shocking as it was, I cannot complain about the outcome.

Congratulations to Galileo champions 1241, 610 & 1477. You earned this!

Speaking with the drive team this was one of the hardest obstacles to overcome. The fact that it took so long to get it right (speeches, more awards, another semifinal match, and waiting for the scores from that match) a good amount of time had passed. We were strategizing and psyching up to play Archimedes (the robots even had our blue bumpers on them) when all of a sudden it was "hold on gotta play one more".

It's not an easy task just switching on the fly like that and in the end we were out played. Congrats to the champions i a well earned victory!

(It's the first time in recent memory that ALL the Einstein rounds went 3 rounds)

[Joe J.]

I never really though I'd be posting in the Einstein thread as a participant! This was the most amazing competition experience I have had in my FRC career. It was truly an honor to get to play on Einstein representing the Curie Division and Michigan. This was Lightning Robotics' 9th trip to the Championship since 2000 and our first time in the Championship eliminations since 2002 (second time ever) and the first time ever advancing beyond the quarterfinals.

Thank you again to our alliance partners 1678 Citrus Circuits and 148 Robowranglers! All my comments in the Curie thread apply here as well, you are two truly amazing teams and it was an honor competing with you!

33 you built an absolutely unstoppable machine. You guys are another team that I have been in awe of for years. You beat us in the quarterfinals as MSC and again on Einstein, you guys were truly powerful competitors! See you guys in the off season!

469 yet another team I've been in awe of for years. Your machine is truly scary cycler, FCS, floor pick up you guys could do it all when it came to scoring discs! It was an amazing to be able to compete against you guys and 33 on Einstein you guys showed the true power of Michigan teams.

1519 you guys and 469 duel full court shooting kept our hands full in our first match, great job on changing it up in matches 2 & 3

Congratulations to 3476, 303 and 1640 on making it to Einstein I didn't get to see much of your matches but what I did see I was really impressed. 1640 way to be the last 30 point climber standing!

Thank you to all the volunteers and FIRST staff that worked so hard to make Einstein such a memorable experience!

Congratulations to 1241 610 and 1477 on winning the FRC World Championship very well deserved!

[DMetalKong]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

While the OPRs from the individual divisions may not have been useful, probably because of differences in division-wide strategies (e.g. whether there are FCSs), the OPRs are very useful in predicting matches within divisions. I haven't checked our results yet, but it looks like our match predictions in Curie were correct in 80% of the matches. That's statistically well beyond significantly different from pure chance.

Also, OPRs are very useful when drawn from a common pool such as a regional or division. Using direct quantitative statistics in our two regionals, we were able to predict the winners of 6 of 7 elimination rounds in both regionals. The only exceptions were 1) the 4 vs 5 round (obviously expected to be the closest most unpredictable) and 2) when the top alliance suffered a mechanical failure for two matches.

Anyone who ignores the predictive power of OPR or other statistics does so at their own peril.

Emphasis mine.

One issue that I experienced when a teammate and I put together an OPR tracker for competitions was that while OPR was very good at "predicting" the outcome of matches that were already measured, it was not as powerful for predicting future matches. We attributed this to the fact that a) the performance of a alliance depends on more than the performance of the individual robots and b) alliances may fare wildly differently when facing different strategies from the opposing side.

[Moriarty]

Originally Posted by chantal68

Ha, yes! Is there a like button for this post?

I would say not. Yes they made a mistake. Yes it was bad. However, remember that volunteers are humans too. I was working Einstein and worked with the person who made the mistake. The guilt they felt was tremendous and I can not imagine how sad/angry they felt because of their mistake. Comments attacking the person for an honest mistake in my opinion, is not appropriate. Any comments about the incident should focus on how we can seek to reduce the chance of human error by learning from the experience and creating safeguards (greater checking at all stages of score calculation), not from making someone feel worse about something they already feel horrible about.

From the Einstein field crew I extend apologies to the alliance because of the mistake, and I do not seek to make light of the situation, only to redirect criticism to the process, not to the person.

EDIT: Saw dcarr's comment about rechecking with calculators and such. Thanks for directing the remarks at the process not the person.

[Grim Tuesday]

Originally Posted by DMetalKong

Emphasis mine.

One issue that I experienced when a teammate and I put together an OPR tracker for competitions was that while OPR was very good at "predicting" the outcome of matches that were already measured, it was not as powerful for predicting future matches. We attributed this to the fact that a) the performance of a alliance depends on more than the performance of the individual robots and b) alliances may fare wildly differently when facing different strategies from the opposing side.

I would sure hope OPR is good at predicting matches from the dataset it took its data from, that's kinda the point.

[Citrus Dad]

As the scouting mentor for 1678, I would like to commend that amazing achievements of our team. Our robot performed consistently, but even when there were problems, the pit crew acted quickly and efficiently and the drive team demonstrated that it was one of the most adaptable and strategic teams on the field. Our scouting team provided reliable steady information that was absolutely key to both on field strategy (we called it the "BS Sniffer" for alliance discussions) and alliance selection.

The real time scouting system was truly amazing. I simply highlighted what data we should collect (based on statistical analysis) and working with the drive team, we chose what data should be displayed. The team's programmers implemented the entire system from the Android, iPhone and Linux code to acquiring all of the necessary hardware, with no mentor guidance (I'm not a programmer). We have a relatively small team (we only brought 15 team members) so this scouting system allowed us to stretch our resources further. (We're considering preparing a white paper with the technical specifications. This could allow other smaller teams to be more competitive with better scouting resources.)

In addition, the business team nearly hit our fundraising goal for the year. This was the first year that we've really focused on systematic fundraising and their achievements were significant.

Finally thanks to our sponsors, the many schools and colleges at UC Davis individually contributing at the forefront. The late season support from both the Da Vinci and Davis HS support foundations was key to lifting us to "world class." DTL/Mori Seiki was our biggest corporate sponsor; the Sunrise Rotary Club our most biggest community sponsor. Finally, thank you to the Davis School Board for providing our coach Steve Harvey (that's another story of true dedication) with a coaching stipend.