Is the qualification match robot randomizer really "random"

[Tom Saxton]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

With this paper I generated for the NJ Regional: ( http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2224 ) I found that the placement of teams during qualification matches in the alliance stations were not equal.

The algorithm does try to balance each team's appearance on the red and blue alliances, but doesn't attempt to balance positions within each alliance.

The red/blue balancing was added because some event arenas are asymmetric where it's better to view the match from one end or the other, so it's a pain if your team is always playing from the less desirable end. The schedules generated before FIRST asked for that (before the 2008 season) were *much* more imbalanced red/blue than what it does now.