**FIRST EMAIL**/Updated Alliance Pairing Algorithm

[dtengineering]

I have to say that I am very pleased with how the new scheduling algorithm is working out. Through 18 qualifying matches in Portland and Seattle we saw and played with a wide range of partners and opponents and had matches that were reasonably well spaced.

As for starting first at the three regionals that Team 48 has been to so far, it would seem the chances of that happening randomly are about 0.3% Which sounds pretty unlikely.

On the other hand there are other patterns that would have similar significance to teams... always having the first match on Saturday, or always having the first match after lunch... always being scheduled for the last match of the qualifiers, etc. so that means that the chance of a team seeing a significant pattern to their matches across these three regionals increases to maybe a bit over 1%. Considering the number of teams at regionals, it may not be surprising that at least one of them has found a pattern to their matches.

This doesn't mean that 48 shouldn't be asking "is something weird here?" There are certainly grounds for them to ask. It merely means that if the answer comes back as "no", then no one should be too surprised. Luck... good, bad, or just weird (I would consider three Q1 matches good luck, as I like to have as many people as possible see our robot) does create funny patterns sometimes and we humans are very good at assigning significance to those patterns.

Jason