Soooo just some thoughts

[benhulett]

After reading jgannon's post about mentor built robots vs student built robots, I do agree with that. I never looked at it that way. I just thought that the majority of the experience gained would be through hands on work rather than watching. I do believe this is a one sided opinion though so I'll take EricH's advice and not go any further into that discussion. But back to the ranking system. Would it not be easier to have a reliable ranking system that brings the top bots forward and reduces the amount of scouting time needed to actually look past the misleading ranks? Because I didn't see much scouting going on to be insanely honest with you all. I'm not saying that our bot deserved this or that, that's not what I'm getting at. I'm getting at the fact that the ranking system shouldn't depend on the outcome of the total match when 1 robot on the entire team did the entirety of the scoring. Although many in this forum have claimed that there are very complex scouting methods out there, I just didn't see it at annapolis this year.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by CraigHickman

About the rankings: They don't mean much. If you're good, you will be chosen. The high ranked teams usually have complex scouting systems, and so if you perform, you'll get picked for elims. If not, you won't. It's that simple.

Hey, Craig, you coming to L.A.? If not, come soon. I still remember the year when one team let TWO other teams use their pick list because those teams didn't have one.

By the way, on the mentors/students debate (to stop it before it starts):
Some good discussion on an extreme case
More...
Still more...
If you want more reading...
And finally, one of the best threads on this topic I've seen.

Originally Posted by EricH

Hey, Craig, you coming to L.A.? If not, come soon. I still remember the year when one team let TWO other teams use their pick list because those teams didn't have one.

Hm. Were those potent teams? I have yet to see that happen around me... Then again, I may have missed it.

Also, as far as the whole not seeing much scouting going on, most of the time you won't see it. For the team I used to be with, it was 6 people with clipboards up in the stands, just watching and writing. Then, that night, all the data was compiled and scored. You wouldn't see it happen, but the results would be a very smexy list with scores, ranks, and all other data about a team, with a pick list on the side.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by CraigHickman

Hm. Were those potent teams? I have yet to see that happen around me... Then again, I may have missed it.

No. Other than the one that allowed the others to use the list. (Last year, there were some obviously unprepared teams and one that prepared hastily.)

Also, as far as the whole not seeing much scouting going on, most of the time you won't see it. For the team I used to be with, it was 6 people with clipboards up in the stands, just watching and writing. Then, that night, all the data was compiled and scored. You wouldn't see it happen, but the results would be a very smexy list with scores, ranks, and all other data about a team, with a pick list on the side.

You got that right. My old team did the same thing. I'm trying to develop that for my current team.

[fredliu168]

Originally Posted by benhulett

Indeed you are correct sir, which is why halfway through that competition when I realized our rank would be stuck very low because of bad match ups, that I could depend on good scouting to pick the best bots. So while watching the alliance selections, I decided to count. I counted two robots outside of the top 24 that were selected. I believe that there were far more suited bots for the top 8 than those in the top 24. This is why I have such little faith in the majority of teams scouting abilities. I did see some awesome scouting by some teams, but not too many.

You don't have to rely on other team's scouting abilities. So you did poorly on qualifications, go out and meet other teams and market your robot. Make posters of your robot's abilities and hand them out personally to every team. Also, record your own statistics and show it to other teams. Get your team's name out.

In my opinion there are some teams with poor scouting systems that may not look at every robot's abilities. These teams are the teams that just view FIRST ranking method. Most would be grateful if you made their job easier for them by proving your robot deserves to be selected. However, make sure not to be overly aggressive.

Drawing from personal experience (in FVC) last year, there were 99 competing teams and we were ranked 94th due to some controller/pairing problems. However we decided to market ourselves to the top 8 and ended up in an alliance and performed very well. If we didn't market ourselves, there would have been no chance of us being selected (as far as I know, the next worse seeded team was ranked in the 60s).

[Tom Line]

One of the biggest improvements our team made was consistent scouting. It took some butt-kicking (by the student leaders) and some consistent pressure (by the student leaders) and a vastly improved scouting system (again by the students). That resulted in the students 100% handling our alliance selections.

This year has been a "break through" year for the team. We lost a lot of seniors last year and a lot of underclassman have had to step up and learn to be leaders. It's never a pretty process, but they've been up to the challenge and done a good job.

Probably the best feeling I got was when they actually un-invited the mentors to the alliance picking. They felt they could do a good job - and they did!

The point of all this? Not one bit of it was robot related. While the kids DID build probably 90% of our robot (even learned to weld aluminum, etc), that is actually the smallest and least important part of what they've done this year. Anyone can learn to drill and tap. Learning to be a leader is something that few people can do, and it's tremendously exciting to see it happen.

Go Team 1718!!!!!!

[GeorgeTheEng]

I think in some ways there is a very important point about what I see as an intentional design of the ranking system and the alliance system.

We often talk about first as building life skills. Some folks will crucify me and others will love me, but FIRST is not about the robot. The robot is a means to an end, not the end.

Is the ranking system flawed from the perspective of "the best robots should be in the elimination matches"? Yes, definitely. Does the ranking system provide a situation that is similar to real life? Yes, definitely.

When you're in elementary and middle school, performance is all about you as an individual student. Even in High school to some respect. In college, at least with engineering, and the "real world" individial performance means much less. Every day you will thrust into situations where you must rely on working with a team of folks you may or may not know. Who may or may not be able (or will) to do what they claim. In the end though, the team performance will be all that matters. This is something the alliance and ranking system simulates beautifully. I work for a large defense contractor where we are teamed on some programs with companies that we compete against on others. It's the nature of our business. Teams are just the nature of engineering in general.

In addition, the best design is not always the successful one. A group that can market a design that is good enough can often be more successful then an extermely well designed but poorly markets product. This is why scouting and marketing your team are very important. There are other factors that go into alliance selection as well, such as the ability to work as a team player. I know teams that will choose a slightly less capable team that is easier to work with and is able to be a team-player over an excellent team that does whatever it feels like.

I think the ranking system puts a large emphasis on team work, strategy, and being able to think on your feet, that an individual perforance based ranking system would not.

Personally, it is things like this that set FIRST apart from other similar competitions and enables students to be better prepared for college and beyond.

[Brandon Holley]

I have to say here that, and please dont take this the wrong way, in the heat of competition some things can happen and cause some frustration afterwards that lingers for a while.

This sounds a bit like one of these kinds of posts. Yes it is unfortunate to not be picked for the eliminations, but honestly you have to trust the people you've never met, the scouters of other teams.

In arizona this year we didnt receive our robot until 3pm thursday afternoon, and we had a lot of work to do on it. We decided to forego our morning matches on friday so that our robot was fully able to function. Well our plan didnt work out because we werent fully working until the end of the day friday. Saturday morning we hit the ground running and were able to show that our catapult was more than capable.

Teams saw this, and even though we had a horrible rank, we were picked, and we made it to the semifinals.

There are hundreds of stories just like this one all over chiefdelphi and FIRST. For each time scouts miss a quality robot for elims, theres a 100 times they don't. Unfortunately everyone cannot be in the finals, you gotta sell yourself.

[ks_mumupsi]

I have to say I disagree on the alliance note as well. Our team had some not so perfect alliances at both NJ and Chesapeake regional, as far as going that we are the only robot on the field and so on. But our robot was picked to compete in elim matches in both places.

It really does boil down to scouting, I think 1418 did an amazing job of scouting and putting the alliance together at chesapeake and 694 did the same at NJ.

[Ken Streeter]

Originally Posted by benhulett

The top 8 teams were given the choice of alliances, and only 2 bots outside of the top 24 were selected. I saw much better bots than some of those inside the top 24 that were impeded by team performance but were outstanding performers.

When I saw this post, my assumption, having not been at the Chesapeake regional, was that there must have been poor scouting by the top-seeded teams and they ended up relying mostly upon standings rather than performance-based scouting of the individual teams. However, just to be sure about this, I looked at the Chesapeake regional results to see how that came about.

What I actually found is that there was actually quite a bit of selection of teams outside of the top 24. Actually, there were seven alliance picks from outside of the top 24 seeded teams -- indeed, there was only one alliance where all three teams were seeded in the top 24! It seems to me that there was quite a lot of picking outside of the top 24 teams! Seven teams within the top 24 were "passed over" in the alliance picking process. (Indeed, of the #17 to #24 seeds, the only team which was selected for the elimination rounds was the #21 seed, team 11.)

Having not been there, this outside examination makes it look like the alliance captains must have used scouting information to guide their choices, other than simply looking at the official standings. (See below.)

Team     Seeding

#1 Alliance
836	1
1027	4
1748	39

#2 Alliance
614	2
339	14
359	50

#3 Alliance
1111	3
88	16
888	51

#4 Alliance
2377	5
1218	8
1629	12

#5 Alliance
768	6
293	13
134	28

#6 Alliance
224	7
75	15
1980	48

#7 Alliance
2234	9
341	11
449	41

#8 Alliance
1418	10
11	21
2016	43

Teams seeded in the top 24 that were "passed over"
484	17
869	18
1719	19
204	20
1933	22
53	23
2537	24

Originally Posted by Frenchie

Basic economics will tell you that if good teams regularly go unpicked, and poor-er teams get regularly picked, some day some team will boost up its scouting team, put together a killer alliance and win everything.

Actually, this looks like it may be what happened at Chesapeake, at least from the view of the "official rankings." The alliance which emerged as the champions was the #8 alliance, headed by the #10 seed (Team 1418), which selected the #21 seed (Team 11) and the #43 seed (Team 2016) to be their alliance partners. If you calculate the "seeding total" of their alliance, it was 10+21+43=74. This was the highest "seeding total" of any of the elimination-round alliances. Given the "official rankings" as the only information, one would think they would be the weakest alliance of all 8 alliances. Instead, they emerged as the winners! Clearly, they must have been doing some scouting to put together the champion alliance out of the teams that were passed over at least once by each of the other 7 alliance captains!

However, this analysis does confirm your point that the "official rankings" don't do a good job of identifying the best robots. However, it appears that the alliance captains didn't rely solely upon the "official rankings" to make their picks, but instead tried to find the good teams regardless of their "official rankings." Why your team wasn't picked, I don't know as I wasn't there, but it doesn't look like your being passed over was simply because you finished out of the top 24 teams.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

A few years back, our team was not selected for eliminations.
But, two teams who were not attending the regional were selected.
And one team who didn't even exist was selected.

Intelligent scouting is important. Please, for the sake of the other teams at your events, put a little effort in. If you happen to seed in the top 8, a good collection of scouting data will not only help you to win, but also let the best teams out there show their stuff. It doesn't have to be stats, but at least know the teams.

[GaryVoshol]

I was surprised when watching the Midwest webcast that the #9 seed was never picked for an alliance. The team themselves were not surprised, though. They admitted that the #9 ranking was higher than they actually deserved. A great bit of GP shown by a rookie team.

[Ben Mitchell]

Originally Posted by benhulett

After reading jgannon's post about mentor built robots vs student built robots, I do agree with that. I never looked at it that way. I just thought that the majority of the experience gained would be through hands on work rather than watching.

I agree, and this I think is a source of great divergence in philosophy among mentors and teams.

I've been on teams on both ends of the spectrum, and student-built robots are way more fun, and the students have pride and ownership.

Inspiration needs to come from this. Anything else is just a waste of potential. Student's don't learn anything from sending something out to get machined, and learn very little from watching a mentor do something.


On Scouting: I have my team's strategy team do what I did back in 2001: make an excel spreadsheet of all different teams and what they do, including observations. Does it tip? Does it have trouble picking up the ball? Is it slow? Can it hurdle well?

In the end the whole database has a concise matrix of fields on abilities and items of note, and the whole thing can be printed out, then shredded when the next version comes out.

2016 hasn't been in a situation to pick an alliance, but it's good practice, and we use the information in the qualifiers to see what we are up against and who we are working with so that we may adjust our strategy accordingly.

[Joe G.]

On Student build vs Mentor build: I have been involved with both extremes, as well as the middle ground. In these cases, I have found that student built, mentor advised workes best. If both voices can be heard, and "hands on" type learners can learn, then it works out. However, this is not to say that the others cannot work. As a student, I found it boring to just sit there, and as a mentor, I found it distressing to have my opinion on matters I felt I knew a lot about thrown out the window. However, I am sure that other teams on both extremes have had better experiences.

On rankings: I feel that the twice the loser's score system helps encourage innovation. A brick on wheels will score very low here, since they keep the losing score so low. I agree that this system isn't perfect. However, it can be compensated for by good scouting. For example, at our bridge battle tournament this weekend, we seeded #2. We were picked by the #1 seed, who then told us that they had no idea who else they wanted. We had been watching every match, and had observed a rookie team, placed in the mid 30s out of 43 teams. They were there mostly through bad luck, but had a very effective robot. We advised the #1 seed to pick them, which they did, and they ended up playing a critical role on our alliance. Good scouting creates good alliances, as it brings out a robot's true performance, rather than wins, losses and ranking points.

There will always be an element of luck, even if we go back to 1v1v1, dependent directly on the other teams on the field.

Finally, when it comes down to it, rankings don't matter. At said vex tournament, we were eliminated narrowly in the semifinals, through a combination of mechanical problems and strong opponents. However, the day was still a great success, as our robot performed phenomenally, scoring 10-16 balls every match. The six days between our FRC regional and the vex tournament of hard work as a team to get our robot from nothing to that is what really counts in FIRST.

[Bharat Nain]

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

A few years back, our team was not selected for eliminations.
But, two teams who were not attending the regional were selected.
And one team who didn't even exist was selected.

Intelligent scouting is important. Please, for the sake of the other teams at your events, put a little effort in. If you happen to seed in the top 8, a good collection of scouting data will not only help you to win, but also let the best teams out there show their stuff. It doesn't have to be stats, but at least know the teams.

This is very true. Also, if you get picked first round and your alliance partner does not have a clue on who to pick second, then your scouting data could come in mighty handy. This happen to us in 2003 and we were National Finalist. Besides, if you don't scout, how do you intend to beat your opponents? Luck can only go so far.