2014 Central Valley Regional

[MichaelBick]

Originally Posted by Gregor

254 just chose 973 as the number one overall pick.

973 was ranked third last with a record of 2-9. Were they having issues, or just the worst schedule imaginable?

973 looked like they were having growing pains switching to a new drive coach combined with pretty poor partners throughout. Regardless, it looks like they are getting those issues figured out(look at their last match) and have really good synergy(973 being good at assists, and 254 being good at shooting with a great auto). It doesn't hurt that they won champs with each other and are great friends too.

[Ether]

Does anyone know: Is there an FRC-wide policy (applicable to all FRC competition events) regarding the process for filling the "extra slots" in the schedule? Or is the policy a local decision?

For example, at CAMA there were 83 Qual matches. 83*6=498 "slots" to assign teams to.

But there were 45 teams. 498 div 45 = 11 rem 3. So, 3 "extra slots".

Who decides which teams fill those 3 extra slots? For example, are they assigned automatically by the scheduling program? And what if one of those selected teams cannot, for some reason, participate in one of these "surrogate" matches - are they penalized in some way?

Or do the organizers at the venue ask for volunteers?

[Bitbucket99]

973 pick looks very fishy to me. Smells of collusion, but would the judges ever do anything? Don't think so.

[Abhishek R]

Originally Posted by Bitbucket99

973 pick looks very fishy to me. Smells of collusion, but would the judges ever do anything? Don't think so.

I haven't been able to keep up with the regional...but if you are accusing 973 of intentionally sandbagging, the Greybots are not a team that would do something like that.

[Ether]

Originally Posted by Bitbucket99

973 pick looks very fishy to me. Smells of collusion, but would the judges ever do anything? Don't think so.

Collusion.

What do you think is illegal, dishonest,or deceitful about it?

[Jay O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by Ether

Does anyone know: Is there an FRC-wide policy (applicable to all FRC competition events) regarding the process for filling the "extra slots" in the schedule? Or is the policy a local decision?

For example, at CAMA there were 83 Qual matches. 83*6=498 "slots" to assign teams to.

But there were 45 teams. 498 div 45 = 11 rem 3. So, 3 "extra slots".

Who decides which teams fill those 3 extra slots? For example, are they assigned automatically by the scheduling program? And what if one of those selected teams cannot, for some reason, participate in one of these "surrogate" matches - are they penalized in some way?

Or do the organizers at the venue ask for volunteers?

The way I've had it explained to me is that they are randomly filled by the FMS and teams always play their surrogate match as their 3rd match. Don't know what would happen if they couldn't participate.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Bitbucket99

973 pick looks very fishy to me. Smells of collusion, but would the judges ever do anything? Don't think so.

1. 973 would absolutely not do this. 973 would not throw 9 matches to be the first selection of the draft, and 254 would definitely not take a gamble with someone going "trust me, we're really good, we just threw matches so you would pick us". Especially when you consider one of 973's highest scoring and closest losses was against 254. Not to mention there is almost no incentive for 973 to throw matches if they're the first pick of the draft. The number one seed picks first.

2. Do you really want judges to be able to "do anything" to a team based on an alleged fishy looking hunch? What action could possibly be appropriate for a judge to take here?

[Jay O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by Bitbucket99

973 pick looks very fishy to me. Smells of collusion, but would the judges ever do anything? Don't think so.

Don't take records as seriously this year as you have in previous years. Since winning matches this year requires your whole alliance to be good, teams are getting screwed out of matches that in previous years they may have been able to win by themselves. There's such a value to teamwork this year that having bad teammates can make your record a lot worse than you really are. Not saying this is definitely what happened to 973, but it's a pretty good assumption I think.

[Ether]

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell

..teams always play their surrogate match as their 3rd match

Could you clarify what you meant by this? Are you saying that for those 3 teams who played 12 matches at CAMA, the 3rd match of those 12 matches they played was their "surrogate" match? If so, any idea what would be the rationale for that?

The way I've had it explained to me...

Can anyone confirm this from an authoritative source?

[Abhishek R]

Originally Posted by Ether

Could you clarify what you meant by this? Are you saying that for those 3 teams who played 12 matches at CAMA, the 3rd match of those 12 matches they played was their "surrogate" match? If so, any idea what would be the rationale for that?



Can anyone confirm this from an authoritative source?

Yes, the third qualification match for the team is counted as the surrogate if they have one. it says so on the bottom of the match schedule handed out at the regional. Why it's the third, I do not know.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Bitbucket99

973 pick looks very fishy to me. Smells of collusion, but would the judges ever do anything? Don't think so.

973 had issues all weekend. They replaced literally every component on their robot in an attempt to be able to connect to the field reliably. There was easily 100+ years of FRC experience between 973 and 254 attempting to figure out the problem last night, which was finally traced to a bad PDB.

If they were sandbagging we would have been trying to pick them with the 23rd pick, not the 1st pick.

[Basel A]

Originally Posted by Ether

Could you clarify what you meant by this? Are you saying that for those 3 teams who played 12 matches at CAMA, the 3rd match of those 12 matches they played was their "surrogate" match? If so, any idea what would be the rationale for that?



Can anyone confirm this from an authoritative source?

Yes, if a team plays a surrogate match, it's always their 3rd round. No, the match schedule is not random, but no details have been released about the algorithm that generates the schedules other than the priorities and specifications. So we can't really say if the surrogate teams are random. More info can be found here: http://www.idleloop.com/matchmaker/

Personally, I'd assume that team numbers are not taken into account in the algorithm, and since that's the only team-specific information that the match scheduler takes in, every team should have an equal chance of being a surrograte.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by Ether

Could you clarify what you meant by this? Are you saying that for those 3 teams who played 12 matches at CAMA, the 3rd match of those 12 matches they played was their "surrogate" match? If so, any idea what would be the rationale for that?



Can anyone confirm this from an authoritative source?

From the manual

5.3.2 MATCH Assignment
The Field Management System (FMS) assigns each Team two (2) ALLIANCE partners for each Qualification MATCH using a predefined algorithm. The algorithm employs the following criteria, listed in order of priority:

Maximize time between each MATCH played for all Teams
Minimize the number of times a Team plays opposite any Team
Minimize the number of times a Team is allied with any Team
Minimize the use of SURROGATES
Provide even distribution of MATCHES played on Blue and Red ALLIANCE

All Teams are assigned the same number of Qualification MATCHES, unless the number of Teams multiplied by number of MATCHES is not divisible by six. In this case, the FMS randomly selects some Teams to play an extra MATCH. For the purpose of seeding calculations, those Teams are designated as SURROGATES for the extra MATCH. If a Team plays a MATCH as a SURROGATE, it is indicated on the MATCH schedule, it is always their third Qualification MATCH, and the outcome of the MATCH has no affect on the Team’s ranking criteria.

[Ether]

Originally Posted by Abhishek R

Yes, the third qualification match for the team is counted as the surrogate if they have one. it says so on the bottom of the match schedule handed out at the regional. Why it's the third, I do not know.

So, questions remaining:

- Is this policy a local decision or an FRC-wide policy*

- Who decides which of the participating teams will play surrogate matches*

- Any particular rationale for the 3rd match being the surrogate?

- If for some reason a team cannot play their last match, does their "surrogate" match become official?

* Karthik & AllenGregoryIV answered in previous posts

[RufflesRidge]

Originally Posted by Ether

- Any particular rationale for the 3rd match being the surrogate?

I don't know for sure, but I would imagine that you want it be as early as possible to prevent using it to easily manipulate standings but late enough to minimize the likelihood that the surrogate team will have any chance of having not passed inspection or otherwise be non-functional (obviously damage can happen in any match and render the robot inoperable for the next match).

- If for some reason a team cannot play their last match, does their "surrogate" match become official?

Nope.