"Random" match Schedules

[Guy Davidson]

I've emailed Paul Woloshin, the FIRST Northern California regional director. He said that

Originally Posted by Paul Woloshin

Guy,

FIRST is aware of the problem as it happened here in Portland. This needs to be revised by FIRST national and I am sure they are working on it this week.

Regards,

Paul

[CrazyCanuck809]

Our team, 611, just got back from the VCU regional and we played against team 612 in every single one of our matches. This wasn't too good for us because they had a 12 inch ramp bot that lifted both of their alliance partners, so our record ended up being 3 and 5. I have total respect for their team and their robot is cool, but i would have been happy if we played them once then got to play other teams instead of the same one over and over again. That being said, the trip was still crazy fun.

[dez250]

I would suggest not to email regional contacts, they have enough on their plates this time of the year and have no control over the Field Management System. The people who need to know about this issue, were aware of it on Friday, they are busy at work fixing this.

[edit] After discussing the Issue with others, the thread has been reopened. Keep an eye out over the next few days for an official update on the situation. [/edit]

[meaubry]

Dez,
Thanks for the short cooling off period - sometimes that is a good idea.

All to often, in the heat of the moment usually, a thread topic like this disintegrates into flames.

Thanks everyone for not letting that happen to this one.

Be patient and I'm sure we'll hear more soon - from FIRST.

Keep up the good work - FIRST community on CD.

Mike Aubry
Team 47 - Chief Delphi

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by dez250

I would suggest not to email regional contacts, they have enough on their plates this time of the year and have no control over the Field Management System. The people who need to know about this issue, were aware of it on Friday, they are busy at work fixing this.

[edit] After discussing the Issue with others, the thread has been reopened. Keep an eye out over the next few days for an official update on the situation. [/edit]

What is your source for this, out of curiosity.

Also, to keep this thread shorter. Lets refrain from unnecessary post. It is no longer necessary to mention team xxx played team yyy z number of times.

Lets keep it to official information only.

[dlavery]

Wow. I take a few days off to work on my real job, and come back to find quite a little firestorm going on here.

I won’t make any attempt to answer all the points that have been discussed here, but will try to hit a few of the highlights.

FIRST is already VERY aware of the problem with the match pairing algorithm. When the alliance assignments for the first set of matches was generated last Thursday evening, the issue became obvious, and they started to pursue a solution to the problem.

There is no need to call your Regional Director, yell at the Event Managers, telegraph your Senior Mentor, e-mail FIRST Headquarters, or petition your Congressional Representatives about your displeasure with the issue. FIRST already gets it. They can spend their very limited time reading your correspondence or solving the problem, but not both. Where do you want to have them focus their energies?

The match pairing algorithm is working exactly as it was designed, and it is not generating the match pairings by mistake. Unfortunately, the algorithm itself is fundamentally flawed, and was not developed with the appropriate constraints and priorities as defined by FIRST (random mixing of partners/opponents, reasonable time between matches for each team, scalability for various numbers of teams, variable match-to-match cycle time, etc. etc. etc.) factored in to the algorithm.

The new software developers implemented the algorithm based on their own set of heuristics for a "desirable" mix of teams in the alliance assignments. These heuristics are inconsistent with those used by FIRST, and were not what either FIRST or the GDC intended. Whether this happened by miscommunication, oversight, or misinformation, I don’t know and it doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that FIRST recognizes their heuristics were not used, they recognize that the situation needs to be fixed, and they have communicated that to the software developers.

Keep an eye out for the next Team Update for information from FIRST regarding their plans to get the problem solved. My understanding is that FIRST has committed to making sure that the situation is corrected, that their priorities for match pairings will be used, and the match pairings for Week 2 competitions will be significantly improved.

-dave

[yodameister]

Thank you for a reply on this. I have to admit, I wasn't looking forward to the match pairings this weekend in Phoenix (possibly seeing the same opponent every match). Thank you.

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by dlavery

... My understanding is that FIRST has committed to making sure that the situation is corrected, that their priorities for match pairings will be used, and the match pairings for Week 2 competitions will be significantly improved.

-dave

Thank you, Dave.

[AdamHeard]

Thanks Dave. We all pretty much thought FIRST was working on a fix, but when there is silence it leads to unchecked speculation. Sorry if we annoyed you at all .


Could we close this thread until the next team update so we don't get an absurd amount of random posts?

[Rich Ross]

[Huge sarcasm] Oh darn, now we have to scout all the teams for quals, not just 15 or so. [/huge sarcasm]

Its a huge relief to know that FIRST is working on it. Im glad that they, like BaneBots, are willing to recognize their mistakes and fix them rather than smooth them over like other organizations might be tempted to do.

[Nuttyman54]

I would like to thank FIRST for living up to my expectations. There was a problem. We complained. They listened. There's not much more we can ask them for. So thank you Dave, and thank you FIRST.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Rich Ross

Its a huge relief to know that FIRST is working on it. Im glad that they, like BaneBots, are willing to recognize their mistakes and fix them rather than smooth them over like other organizations might be tempted to do.

FIRST cares.
Sometimes when we get headed towards a firestorm as Dave aptly put it - we should make a 'FIRST cares' sticker and put it where we can see it before we press the 'send' or 'reply' button. Discussion = good, firestorms = worrisome.
Jane

[pafwl]

We were at the Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland. We immediately noticed that we were up against 360 in every round and they were almost right next to us in the pits. I think it is very unfair and short sighted that FIRST has decided to seed the rounds like this. This was so pervasive at PNR that it had to be intentional. There were many other vets teams in this position.

In the past at our home regional in Philadelphia we were never able to play with many vet teams because of this "random" system. I know we all go out to win and 360 was a very good competitor, but going up against the same team means you may get to exploit something you may find with their robot. This is really un-fair.

I guess we need to let FIRST know this is unnacceptable. It seems to me they are striving for political correctness instead of competition. Looks like someone doesn't think this is important or understand what we are doing here. It's actually pretty sad.

[pafwl]

I just read Dave's message...I am now more confused...
I am in software development... Who tested the results? Why did someone wait until Thursday night of the First regionals to check?

Why not ask us, the people who care the most? Generate a test sample weeks before, send it out and ask us to check it. I do this with the FLL competition I have run for 9 years. The teams check everyting from the schedules to the table assignments. They let me know of problems. I know there are few official "FIRST" people, but there are thousands of us. Ask us, we can help.

[Guy Davidson]

Thank you Dave for posting and clarifying the issue. I'm looking forwards to the next team update to see what are FIRST planning to do.

-Guy Davidson