Real Week 2 update

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Boltman

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.

This proposition is inherently contradictory. You are asking for an "unbiased" volunteer to introduce bias into the schedule based on their perception of historical robot / team quality. No matter how you slice it, that is biasing the results even farther from random than what they are, and there isn't even a chance of a volunteer doing this "fairly".

Changing the algorithm to try and pair teams of different ages with each other was tried once, in 2007, with generally disastrous results. The match making generator is already far from random when you consider all of the constraints on it - adding more constraints to make schedules "fairer" all but requires loosening one of the other constraints. In 2007, this meant matches had a consistent mix of young teams, old teams, and middle aged teams... at the cost of having to play with and against the same robots over and over again. It was almost universally disliked.

My advice? Get over the fact that schedules won't ever be "fair" however you see it, and work on becoming a team that isn't dependent on a perfect schedule to play well into Saturday / Sunday afternoon.

[1493kd]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Changing the algorithm to try and pair teams of different ages with each other was tried once, in 2007, with generally disastrous results.

I will agree 100% with the 2007 system of scheduling being a mess. It was my second year on the team and we ended up being ranked 2nd at UTC with a robot that never hung a tube once (maybe 2) and was complete garbage. We were lucky and got paired up with 25 twice and many other great teams to push up to being ranked 2nd.

I felt guilty ranking so high with such a poor performing robot. I refuse to even count it as our highest ranking ever at an event.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by Boltman

In day 1 of Central valley we actually worked our way up to #1 by the time the day ended...1678 will likely pass us due to not playing yet. We should end up Alliance captain 1,2 or 3. with three to play.

We got there by only losing 1 game , breaching every time, had on Capture with 254 and crew.

1678 and 254 are the best here, we just happen to be very good at collecting RP

So far we had to replace 4 of the pulleys from the treads (cracked again), my advice to teams with tank treads consider putting on Revision 4 before your competition and of course harden all connectors.

We upgrade our drive camera to http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Webca.../dp/B006JH8T3S and its fantastic

As for telescoping poles this central valley competition has tons of teams with them 1678 is 30 foot high it seems.

Team 8 built a screen to obscure Birdseye views out of duct tape.
Anyhow off to Day 2..will update afterwards.

Congrats to 5137 playing so well during CVR! You were very steady throughout. Interesting how you and 5136 have developed into such strong teams in a short amount of time.

[Boltman]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

Congrats to 5137 playing so well during CVR! You were very steady throughout. Interesting how you and 5136 have developed into such strong teams in a short amount of time.

Thanks we loved it. We were rooting hard for 5136 too.

[Boltman]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

This proposition is inherently contradictory. You are asking for an "unbiased" volunteer to introduce bias into the schedule based on their perception of historical robot / team quality. No matter how you slice it, that is biasing the results even farther from random than what they are, and there isn't even a chance of a volunteer doing this "fairly".

Changing the algorithm to try and pair teams of different ages with each other was tried once, in 2007, with generally disastrous results. The match making generator is already far from random when you consider all of the constraints on it - adding more constraints to make schedules "fairer" all but requires loosening one of the other constraints. In 2007, this meant matches had a consistent mix of young teams, old teams, and middle aged teams... at the cost of having to play with and against the same robots over and over again. It was almost universally disliked.

My advice? Get over the fact that schedules won't ever be "fair" however you see it, and work on becoming a team that isn't dependent on a perfect schedule to play well into Saturday / Sunday afternoon.

Been there done that already as I repeatedly said this did not affect us (but may affect others).... we held our own in CV and Ventura last year both days . I think that small changes could be made though to benefit all teams and saying that's "just the way it is" is not really acceptable.

I foresee maybe about three glaring inconsistencies that may need to be adjusted per "powerhouse" event... an hour of work maybe just making sure it does not mess another team up. The system is decent I believe it can be improved. Just like missed defense crossings that also can improve. Pretty sad when Portcullis crossings are missed especially the way we did them

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by Boltman

Scheduling curiosity and my observations over past two seasons ... I see no valid reason why 5137 had to play 1678 THREE times in 10 Qualifications (One with Two against one with 254 too) also its sort of weird 1678 and 254 played together in a late qualification. I noticed this trend last year where top bots often were paired together. I have a statistical degree does not seem like a random enough scheduling. Nonetheless teams especially those without "world credentials" seeming need to play above (scheduling and calls) each year until they finally crack through t the elite status.

I agree; I've posted about this earlier. A bit of history: we got the No 1 seed in Curie in 2013 in part because we had a very favorable schedule--play with powerhouses, never against them. In 2015, it was the opposite, but we scrambled through and made ourselves very attractive to 118. Our scheduling bonus was in the initial assignment to Newton when we had already played with 118 in Sac (and we knew 1671 extremely well.)

The solution is in fact quite easy. It's a two-step scheduling algorithm that accounts for last season's performance. I believe that all of the professional sports leagues already do this. First, you sort the teams in bins A, B & C based on a ranking criterion--probably a system akin to the district point system. (Rookies = 0). Each match is scheduled by drawing a team from each bin for each alliance as an added step. All of the other constraints then come into place.

The single biggest problem? FIRST has to explicitly acknowledge that teams are of differing competitive quality. The rationale for the ChampSplit seems to imply that they are unwilling to make this acknowledgement as somehow being demeaning. I believe that it is much more disheartening to face two WC teams in a qualifying round and know that there's little that you can do to slow them down when they are paired because all of your alliancemates are young teams.

Originally Posted by Boltman

Oh and when we were alliance captain 2 when they were talking about the teams ..it was all this team won this , this team won that , this team is amazing..they came to us do you have anything to say? (Literally "I got nothing to add"). Wow thanks. Guess its just world creds that play. To be fair in eliminatios they finally dug up some things to say..Like RAS, SF in SD etc.

And I've been quite disappointed in the announcing prep done for FRC teams. Too often they bring in a "voice" who has little connection to FRC. At Sacramento, I plan to give the announcers much more prep (I'm on the RPC). They can spread out the kudos for teams like 254 over the whole competition so there's not a huge buildup in a single match (but it's also important to generate buzz by acknowledging team accomplishments--watch any elite sporting competition.) And it's also very important to acknowledge what other newer or lower ranked teams have done. Even noting that 5137 had been fighting for No. 1 seed all competition should have been notes.

Again, congrats. Please come to Sac soon!

[Boltman]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

I agree; I've posted about this earlier. A bit of history: we got the No 1 seed in Curie in 2013 in part because we had a very favorable schedule--play with powerhouses, never against them. In 2015, it was the opposite, but we scrambled through and made ourselves very attractive to 118. Our scheduling bonus was in the initial assignment to Newton when we had already played with 118 in Sac (and we knew 1671 extremely well.)

The solution is in fact quite easy. It's a two-step scheduling algorithm that accounts for last season's performance. I believe that all of the professional sports leagues already do this. First, you sort the teams in bins A, B & C based on a ranking criterion--probably a system akin to the district point system. (Rookies = 0). Each match is scheduled by drawing a team from each bin for each alliance as an added step. All of the other constraints then come into place.

The single biggest problem? FIRST has to explicitly acknowledge that teams are of differing competitive quality. The rationale for the ChampSplit seems to imply that they are unwilling to make this acknowledgement as somehow being demeaning. I believe that it is much more disheartening to face two WC teams in a qualifying round and know that there's little that you can do to slow them down when they are paired because all of your alliancemates are young teams.



And I've been quite disappointed in the announcing prep done for FRC teams. Too often they bring in a "voice" who has little connection to FRC. At Sacramento, I plan to give the announcers much more prep (I'm on the RPC). They can spread out the kudos for teams like 254 over the whole competition so there's not a huge buildup in a single match (but it's also important to generate buzz by acknowledging team accomplishments--watch any elite sporting competition.) And it's also very important to acknowledge what other newer or lower ranked teams have done. Even noting that 5137 had been fighting for No. 1 seed all competition should have been notes.

Again, congrats. Please come to Sac soon!

Thanks for the world class insights.... SAC how much further is that? LOL, I literally almost fell asleep on the way home...had to pull over to take a 20 minute "not crash car" nap

[Lil' Lavery]

As someone who was around the last time the match scheduling algorithm attempted to account for strength of schedule, NO. Just NO. 2007 was AWFUL. Yes, these caps are required.

The gripe is about favorable/unfavorable schedules. If you try to balance out the competitive levels of teams, you're inherently creating favorable/unfavorable schedules. This is exactly what happened in 2007. Older teams had unfavorable schedules, and younger teams had favorable ones. By trying to solve the problem, you're essentially enshrining the problem.

And as a technical point, only the NFL accounts for previous seasons' results in determining the schedule. And that's a relatively minor factor (it influences only 2 games of the 16 on each team's schedule). Conferences/divisions (which are geographically based) are the driving factor in the other 14 games of the NFL schedule, and the lone factor in the NBA, MLB, and NHL schedules.

[Boltman]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

As someone who was around the last time the match scheduling algorithm attempted to account for strength of schedule, NO. Just NO. 2007 was AWFUL. Yes, these caps are required.

The gripe is about favorable/unfavorable schedules. If you try to balance out the competitive levels of teams, you're inherently creating favorable/unfavorable schedules. This is exactly what happened in 2007. Older teams had unfavorable schedules, and younger teams had favorable ones. By trying to solve the problem, you're essentially enshrining the problem.

And as a technical point, only the NFL accounts for previous seasons' results in determining the schedule. And that's a relatively minor factor (it influences only 2 games of the 16 on each team's schedule). Conferences/divisions (which are geographically based) are the driving factor in the other 14 games of the NFL schedule, and the lone factor in the NBA, MLB, and NHL schedules.

NFL teams play each other once unless in divisions (or playoffs)

I do think there is a solution....

NO duplicates
Also too many pairings/facings of "known powerhouse teams" should be schedule avoided until eliminations

Powerhouses don't really need that much help to rank high nor is it good for younger teams to face "near certain doom" twice in a competition hence my no duplicate suggestion

Powerhouse teams will not be left on the bench either they will nearly always be selected regardless. Most other teams not as much.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Boltman

NFL teams play each other once unless in divisions

Correct. That doesn't change my point. Only 2 of the 16 games on an NFL teams' schedule are based on the previous seasons' results. The other 14 games are based on which division a team plays in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation...rent_fo rmula

[Boltman]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Correct. That doesn't change my point. Only 2 of the 16 games on an NFL teams' schedule are based on the previous seasons' results. The other 14 games are based on which division a team plays in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation...rent_fo rmula

But two games are..perhaps similar to the few match-ups I see as inconsistent?

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Boltman

But two games are..perhaps similar to the few match-ups I see as inconsistent?

I wasn't trying to use the NFL as a model to base our scheduling algorithm off of. I was simply pointing out that the assertion that "all of the professional sports leagues already do this" is factually incorrect. Three of the four major North American professional leagues do not factor in previous performance at all, and the only that does only has two games based off of it.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

I wasn't trying to use the NFL as a model to base our scheduling algorithm off of. I was simply pointing out that the assertion that "all of the professional sports leagues already do this" is factually incorrect. Three of the four major North American professional leagues do not factor in previous performance at all, and the only that does only has two games based off of it.

We could always follow the European soccer leagues' example and relegate the bottom performers.

/s

[plnyyanks]

Another important thing to mention here is that this year's volunteer training very heavily emphasized only running the MatchMaker algorithm once and only once. And if you ran it a second time, you had to explain your reasoning on Skype. The reason for this policy is to avoid the exact kinds of bias we're discussing - because randomness is the fairest decider of them all.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Boltman

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.

The programmer of the 2007 match algorithm believed the same thing. Whether or not it is correct doesn't matter much to the results of implementing that belief: with fewer than about 60 teams at an event, the number of times a given team plays with or against a specific other team skyrockets. This is exactly what you're trying to avoid, isn't it?

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

The solution is in fact quite easy. It's a two-step scheduling algorithm that accounts for last season's performance. I believe that all of the professional sports leagues already do this. First, you sort the teams in bins A, B & C based on a ranking criterion--probably a system akin to the district point system. (Rookies = 0). Each match is scheduled by drawing a team from each bin for each alliance as an added step. All of the other constraints then come into place.

Unless you have an extraordinarily large pool of teams to draw from, "all of the other constraints" conspire to cluster teams into essentially the same groupings over and over again. What problem were you trying to solve again?