Real Week 2 update

[Boltman]

As a follow up to my scheduling observations from CVR here are the key matches where "top teams" met on the same field of play as partners or as opponents. Of course there were many good teams but these tend to be the best by historic achievements. 179 peaked my interest to look a bit deeper. My definition of top teams are those I noted going in based on achievement. Forgive me if I missed someone.

as of now, every team # in picture identified is less than number 1679

What I did was only extracted every game in which top teams crossed paths or partnered up and the results are seemingly not random at first glance of the same field games.

Three matches the top teams faced against each other BUT there were SIX matches where they were also alliance partners

I did our matches and got TWO such pairings whereas 5136 had more (they also made WC) and we are within one Team# of them.

So I think the algorithm may weight previous WC pairings more favorably than head to heads. Again I only looked at games where giants crossed paths in qualification.

It can seem random (about two three games per, probably that way for most teams) but one would think that Head to head versus Side by Side alliance members would be more even. Not off by a about a factor of two.

I get what 179 is saying also about game scheduling and time between matches also one regional is not enough sample size but it is curious to look at. Like I said I noticed this last year, I see patterns quite well my job as scout/strategy mentor and it carries on into this year. Perhaps with more years I will see it start to even out. For now it doesn't really matter other than to satisfy my curiosity on how match scheduling really occurs.

The colors have nothing to do with my personal ranking of individual teams. Rather its just so I can identify the different top teams with different shades of green to better visualize it.

I'll run similar test next year to see if it is similar or balances it out assuming we go to one the powerhouse regional's again..they are fun. Hard to miss them around CA.

In the end I would not doubt this is done for entertainment value, as a bunch of 50 point games is not real exciting (140 is) however its not the most efficient way of getting as 179 calls it the "next generation" to show up regularly at worlds . They seem to have an uphill swim and scheduling in regional's could explain some of it. Perhaps it can be a reason why some don't make it for quite a while. But occasionally they do punch through. In no way did this affect us we got what we earned in both regional's and could not ask for more than that this season.

[araniaraniratul]

@boltman: I can't help but feel for you a little bit. That's also considering that they changed the schedule, and ours got ridiculously harder in the second one (even though we weren't functional 99% of the time.) As for the one loss that 254 sustained, it was with us. Our CAN cycle broke, and their battery wasn't clipped in properly. We lost by 4 points, and if you watch that match, if 5499 moved two more feet, a breach would have been granted, giving a slight win. Another park, you'd be winning for sure, but obviously the dynamics would have changed so that doesn't mean anything. I will say this though, even in my time with 294 (2 world championships, few regional wins, countless finalist results) we often got left with horrendous schedules. Hell, they went undefeated in quals at LA with a horrendous one this year! Not to mention being left in the dust by admittedly bad referee calls. I'm not entirely sure it's purely because they're a good team, just that at this event the historically better ones got a bit better off. As much as I love Jim, I'd understand why he should have kept accomplishment bragging relevant to the current year, but that's above my volunteer-grade.

I loved inspecting your bot, and I love seeing awesome 5k+ teams! I'm really disappointed your season is over, and y'all definitely deserved better. I hope the momentum stays up, and can't wait to see y'all bigger and better in the future.

[Boltman]

Originally Posted by araniaraniratul

@boltman: I can't help but feel for you a little bit. That's also considering that they changed the schedule, and ours got ridiculously harder in the second one (even though we weren't functional 99% of the time.) As for the one loss that 254 sustained, it was with us. Our CAN cycle broke, and their battery wasn't clipped in properly. We lost by 5 points, and if you watch that match, if 5499 moved two more feet, a breach would have been granted, giving a tie. Another park, you'd be winning, but obviously the dynamics would have changed so that doesn't mean anything. I will say this though, even in my time with 294 (2 world championships, few regional wins, countless finalist results) we often got left with horrendous schedules. Hell, they went undefeated in quals at LA with a horrendous one this year! Not to mention being left in the dust by admittedly bad referee calls. I'm not entirely sure it's purely because they're a good team, just that at this event the historically better ones got a bit better off. As much as I love Jim, I'd understand why he should kept accomplishment bragging relevant to the current year, but that's above my volunteer-grade.

I loved inspecting your bot, and I love seeing awesome 5k+ teams! I'm really disappointed your season is over, and y'all definitely deserved better. I hope the momentum stays up, and can't wait to see y'all bigger and better in the future.

Thank you for the kind words, we had a great time at both regionals and actually enjoyed the two weeks in a row we put a lot of mileage on Varsam in the past 20 days since bag and tag. Might do the same next year. As our lead mentor said to me at CV "not sure what we would have done with weeks in between"

It does sting a bit to be so ridiculously close two years in a row in world class regionals. I post my thoughts and experiences to help other teams, its what I do during robot season. I always look forward to robot season a love seeing our team grow each year. Sure we'd love to be in worlds again who wouldn't? We were very fortunate to go as rookies (and placed 90th) , I did not think we were the best rookie that year in SD so we were surprised. Last two years we earned it and had really good shots at i its fun to be able to hang with some of the best on the planet. That's why I was personally a bit put off by the "pray for those in CV "comments leading up to week 2. I saw it as a fun time coming up..it was.

Sorry about your team issues too..that stinks when so close in a game to perfection.

This year , I know we played our best and it'll just take a bit more to get there just have to do better and that is part of the fun. Thanks for the great Central Valley regional everyone was fantastic. We'll be back next year somewhere in CA

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Boltman

As a follow up to my scheduling observations from CVR here are the key matches where "top teams" met on the same field of play as partners or as opponents. Of course there were many good teams but these tend to be the best by historic achievements. 179 peaked my interest to look a bit deeper. My definition of top teams are those I noted going in based on achievement. Forgive me if I missed someone.

as of now, every team # in picture identified is less than number 1679

What I did was only extracted every game in which top teams crossed paths or partnered up and the results are seemingly not random at first glance of the same field games.

Three matches the top teams faced against each other BUT there were SIX matches where they were also alliance partners

I did our matches and got TWO such pairings whereas 5136 had more (they also made WC) and we are within one Team# of them.

So I think the algorithm may weight previous WC pairings more favorably than head to heads. Again I only looked at games where giants crossed paths in qualification.

It can seem random (about two three games per, probably that way for most teams) but one would think that Head to head versus Side by Side alliance members would be more even. Not off by a about a factor of two.

I get what 179 is saying also about game scheduling and time between matches also one regional is not enough sample size but it is curious to look at. Like I said I noticed this last year, I see patterns quite well my job as scout/strategy mentor and it carries on into this year. Perhaps with more years I will see it start to even out. For now it doesn't really matter other than to satisfy my curiosity on how match scheduling really occurs.

The colors have nothing to do with my personal ranking of individual teams. Rather its just so I can identify the different top teams with different shades of green to better visualize it.

I'll run similar test next year to see if it is similar or balances it out assuming we go to one the powerhouse regional's again..they are fun. Hard to miss them around CA.

In the end I would not doubt this is done for entertainment value, as a bunch of 50 point games is not real exciting (140 is) however its not the most efficient way of getting as 179 calls it the "next generation" to show up regularly at worlds . They seem to have an uphill swim and scheduling in regional's could explain some of it. Perhaps it can be a reason why some don't make it for quite a while. But occasionally they do punch through. In no way did this affect us we got what we earned in both regional's and could not ask for more than that this season.

Whatever you think you're seeing here, you're wrong. There is nothing about the algorithm that weights whether a team has made it to Champs. You're grasping at straws.

[pandamonium]

Originally Posted by Boltman

Knock Knock Knocking on Finals.... Three semi-finals and three almosts.

Last year we (1836,696) lost by a single scoring play to the ultimate winners in Ventura (1717,330 ,2761)

@Boltman Congrats on another great season. 1836 was cheering you on from our shop. You were fantastic alliance partners last year. Hopefully we will see you at OC if you are there come say hi!

[wireties]

Originally Posted by Cory

Whatever you think you're seeing here, you're wrong. There is nothing about the algorithm that weights whether a team has made it to Champs. You're grasping at straws.

QFT - The algorithm (at least a few years ago) does not include team numbers or any kind of history. It starts with team #1 (attending that regional) and goes through team X (attending that regional). It is randomized a bit but it has nothing do with the FRC team number until it fills in that the nth team to register was team ABCD for the report they feed to pit admin.

With respect you are way out in left field on this topic.

[Boltman]

Originally Posted by wireties

QFT - The algorithm (at least a few years ago) does not include team numbers or any kind of history. It starts with team #1 (attending that regional) and goes through team X (attending that regional). It is randomized a bit but it has nothing do with the FRC team number until it fills in that the nth team to register was team ABCD for the report they feed to pit admin.

With respect you are way out in left field on this topic.

I may be "in left field" a simple check will either prove a trend or not.

[matthewdenny]

I would like to note that with small sample sizes it is statistically likely to see patterns that aren't actually there.

[Boltman]

Originally Posted by pandamonium

@Boltman Congrats on another great season. 1836 was cheering you on from our shop. You were fantastic alliance partners last year. Hopefully we will see you at OC if you are there come say hi!

Thanks 1836 we were bummed you were not at CV, I immediately looked for your team. Glad you checked us out ..it was so fun. I most likely will do OC I just need another week to decide.

And best of luck! (Harden your bot and bring every spare part)

[Boltman]

Originally Posted by matthewdenny

I would like to note that with small sample sizes it is statistically likely to see patterns that aren't actually there.

I know that is just one regional, I am not drawing a conclusive statement just what I noticed in two years of actually analyzing stuff. Just presenting limited data in one regional here.

It did not affect us one bit. Neither did losing 2 RP in San Diego. We were good enough to get what we deserved either way.

[Boltman]

Originally Posted by Cory

Whatever you think you're seeing here, you're wrong. There is nothing about the algorithm that weights whether a team has made it to Champs. You're grasping at straws.

Perhaps, anyhow we had a ton of fun playing with all the great teams up in
NoCal. Good luck 254 your bot rocks.

[rsisk]

Originally Posted by Boltman

<snip>

As for calls forget bumper hang penalties..the judges did not call any and bots were constantly harassed in outworks. The world class teams still were successful as was that super strong rookie team Unirex. They have the hardest shot I've ever seen and only swerve drive there I saw.

<snip>

Sorry, pet peeve of mine. Referees make these calls, not judges.

Did any of the teams ask the referees during the driver meeting if outerwork shots would be protected?

My opinion is this has to be brought up at every drivers meeting in order to keep the rule fresh in the referee's minds.

p.s. thanks for the great updates!

[Lil' Lavery]

There is no "perhaps" here. The algorithm does not factor in team numbers or team history. Rather than pontificate here, consider talking with an FTA or reading up on the matchmaking algorithm to understand how it works.

http://www.idleloop.com/matchmaker/

[Boltman]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

There is no "perhaps" here. The algorithm does not factor in team numbers or team history. Rather than pontificate here, consider talking with an FTA or reading up on the matchmaking algorithm to understand how it works.

http://www.idleloop.com/matchmaker/

Thanks for the link! I like having more info.

"it's desirable to minimize duplicates so that teams see as many different teams as possible. It's especially desirable for a given team not to have the same team as a partner more than once, nor as an opponent more than once."

I think they could have split 1678's second match against us to another match just sayin'. Its not really ideal for any team to face consensus #1 twice in qualifications or 20% of their matches.

I'm sure the algorithm tries to be unbiased however as we know it can be imperfect (as the above link states) a human FTA should look for duplicates and adjust as necessary. Just flip teams above or below any "peculiarity" a one game switch in the schedule is doable.

I am not pontificating (you chose to read a post in my week 2 update thread), just pointing out the realities of a single regional's scheduling that happened to have 4 World Champions everyone in FRC knows.

Also I disagree with this statement "This is not only a scheduling algorithm issue, but a simple matter of not knowing in advance which teams will turn out to be more effective than others."

I believe "Class" has a lot to do with year to year success in a 20 year organization of 4000 or so teams... just like in horse racing. So to say that 254 or 1678 or 973 or 1323 are all the sudden not going to be good is a false statement. they will likely be very good because of their programs and their history. They would not accept anything less. Same here we are not going to fall off the face of FRC either every year we will iterate better. You can assume certain things from how teams have done in the past. Just look at their year over year results its all there.

I think to really do scheduling "correctly" some unbiased FTA needs to "adjust" when the computer prints out what it thinks is optimal based on some algorithm. The FTA knows or should know the perennial teams and could easily see the duplicates or inordinate amount of powerhouse pairings with a single highlighter . They could adjust anytime up to when its posted. It can be done and I think it improves the game play as well if instituted correctly.

The main problem is.. teams only get maybe 20 matches in two regionals so scheduling draw is huge just like "missed RP's" as a high order ranking metric.

I'm not afraid to point things out to improve the game hopefully for every team. FRC is great yet can still improve and tweak. Its good to be questioned and not accept always the status quo. I may just have a fresh view on an older institution. Things can always improve.

This is not why we are not in St Louis. All I'm sayin' it could be done better...and perhaps it makes a smidgen of difference if they actually tweak the way schedules are made. Might take a half hour or less at each regional to flip a few teams a few spots with the analytic help.

-----------------------------------------------

Attached is the way I do schedules lets pretend its a different season and in this scenario 3495 is a super powerhouse and consensus #1 or won 4 WC divisions and its our second match with them on our side. Great for us but seemingly "unfair" for having #1 twice on our side (or against us)

I mark partners in green and opponents in red for my scouts. Whites we do not play.

So if an FTA wanted to by switching 5137 for 2135 a one game switch a second powerhouse pairing match is avoided then all they have to do is make sure the other 5 teams did not play that team on same side or not. There are plenty of white spaces to switch teams around IF the goal is to be more random and possibly more fair to all teams.

If that does not work then there are two other "blue" teams that could make the switch.

We could have probably used the extra game in between as well there...in that scenario.

Just like with instant replay, changes can be made that are fairly simple and don't open a can of worms.... what might actually happen is all the sudden more teams get super good alliance partners and avoid facing powerhouses too much until eliminations. Schedules are always pretty late anyhow.

I think a human eye on it could easily sort out inconsistencies, much easier than trying to program some algorithm..its not rocket science. Let the algorithm do the sort.. then highlight several inconsistencies and move things around slightly.

[Boltman]

Originally Posted by rsisk

Sorry, pet peeve of mine. Referees make these calls, not judges.

Did any of the teams ask the referees during the driver meeting if outerwork shots would be protected?

My opinion is this has to be brought up at every drivers meeting in order to keep the rule fresh in the referee's minds.

p.s. thanks for the great updates!

Thanks for correcting me and you are welcome.