"New" 2nd Week Scheduling Algorithm

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by Richard

Hasn't this been beat to death yet? OK, so low numbered teams don't get to play with each other in qualifying. So what?

I will first of all agree with the rest of your post, in which you point out that excellent teams can still make it to the top of the qualifying rounds, and that it is possible for a low-seeded team to be picked by a top eight-seeded team. I don't think anyone is arguing that, but I feel obliged to address the question above.

The "so what" is that by introducing team number as a factor in scheduling matches FIRST is intentionally attempting to bias the outcome of the qualifying matches and introducing a factor into the final seeding that is in no way related to how well a team works or how well designed their robot is. Perhaps this would be acceptable if it were stated in advance in the tournament rules that "your team number will be a factor in determining your opponents and alliance partners", or if a win-loss record of qualifying matches was not kept. (Maybe we should just vote for the top eight teams?)

By reducing the randomness of the qualifying match draws, FIRST is not only ending up with a qualification process that less adequately represents the relative abilities of the teams in the overall standings, but also allows teams to question whether they are getting a "fair chance" to win matches.

To those who say that a biased match-scheduling system "doesn't matter", then if it doesn't matter why not just get rid of it and go back to random draws?

The fact is... it does matter, and it hasn't been "beat to death", because the biased scheduling system is not dead yet.

Jason

P.S. Although I argue this point strenuously, I'm not quite prepared to start marching to New Hampshire with an "Against Team-Number Oppression" banner or suggesting that FIRST isn't making an honest effort to do a good job... this is one of life's smaller annoyances, after all, but when a team does well... or poorly... in qualifying matches, those results should not be prejudiced by what date they first registered.