Crazy Idea, looking for comments

[archiver]

Posted by P.J. Baker, Engineer on team #177, Bobcat Robotics, from South Windsor High School and International Fuel Cells.

Posted on 5/5/99 10:42 AM MST


In Reply to: Or we could try the easy way... posted by Daniel on 5/4/99 9:15 PM MST:




: It is a well known statistical fact that luck is eliminated with increased trials. We need increased trials!

I agree, increased trials would reduce the luck factor. But there is another way (I think). At one point I thought FIRST was actually doing this, but I changed my mind. Randomly break up the teams into 8 groups (this year there would have been 26 teams per group. Play a round robinish tournament with the smaller group. The top two teams from each group comprise the 'sweet 16' and then you conduct the draft from there. As long as there is some minimum # of Q mathces per team (let's say at least 4), luck is actually a function of the ratio of the number of matches played to the number of teams in your group. With 6 matches and 208 teams, luck is a much bigger factor than 6 matches ad 26 teams.

: If one 540 match can put a lucky robot into the select sixteen, and similarly one 8 point round can pull a select sixteen team from that coveted position, there is obviously a problem. You have all acknowledged this in your posts. The solution is to increase the trials!

I'm still not sure that this is true. Give a 'lucky' team one 540 point win and 5, 100 point losses (a very good losing score). Their average QP is 353, decent but below this year's top 16 (We were 14th with about a 460 average).

There has been a lot of discussion about defense not being rewarded in the seeding rounds. This is obviously true, but ... FIRST gave us all the same set of rules on day one. It was obvious then that they wanted to reward scoring in matches. This makes sense. People want to see high scores, it's more fun. Defense is exciting in the elimination rounds, because winning is so much more important. Think about pro hockey. It's hard to get people to watch because of the low scoring. In the post season though, there is nothing more exciting (in all of pro sports, IMHO) than sudden death in the Stanley Cup playoffs. I don't think FIRST screwed up this year by placing so much emphasis on scoring in the Q rounds. What I feel they did screw up was in placing so much importance on scoring for a game where it was very difficult to tell the score until after it is all over. They paired a game that is more exciting to watch when played defensively with a system that rewarded offense. Rather than lobbying FIRST to do one thing or the other with the scoring, I think that we should be asking them to make sure that there is a good fit between whatever the game is and whatever the seeding formula is.


Any Thoughts?

P.J.