FIRST 101 [9/26/05]

[Andy Grady]

Hello Class!

Today we are going to be discussing another wonderful time in FIRST history. Before there were alliances there was...

THE BRACKET OF DOOM!


Imagine a time before alliances. A time when secrecy was rampid and the Delphi Forum was just in it's baby stage. Imagine if you will, getting ramped up for a match...you see 4 robots on the field. The first odd thing you notice...there are more than 2 colors! What? Where are alliances? Wait...you must be sitting in on one of the original U.S. FIRST competitions! (For those who dont know, U.S. stands for "United States" back before FIRST was global and was slightly more narrow minded) For simplicity sake (and the fact that I know more about FIRST from 1995 on) lets discuss Ladder Logic. In 1998, the competition had something called "seeding matches". Yes folks...this is like qualifying matches, except if you laid an egg on friday, you'd STILL get to play in elimination rounds. You would play 3 matches on friday...yes, I realize thats not too much, but lets remember this was back in the stone ages when Beverly Hills 90210 was still amazingly popular.

Did you know that music was not introduced into the competition until 1997?

Anyhow, you would play your three matches, then you would be seeded according to win loss record, and total points scored! None of this 2 times your opponents score plus the square root of Pi divided by the number of pins on Woodie Flowers vest.

Did you know that Woodie Flowers used to be the main Emcee for FIRST, traveling around the country doing various competitions.

By the time all was said and done, you would have seeds lined up and it was time to fill out the bracket.

Ahhhh yes , the bracket...the most beautiful piece of documentation in FIRST history. The pre-alliance elmination brackets were definately the work of engineers. I think I have seen forumulas for creating cold fusion make more sense than the US FIRST ladder of doom. Double elimination, winner of match 1 moves to match 25. Second place loser of match one goes to match 12B, while the 3rd place loser of match one goes to match 8C, they battle it out in a 3 way death match against the placebo (yes the placebo was actually in the losers bracket!) and bam...through the millions and millions of losers bracket rounds you go. The beauty of the bracket was the fact that the number 1 seed would get a double bye...which essentially meant they made it into the quarterfinals without even entering the field on saturday. Of course that meant the number 1 seed could sleep in, or take up a ride on "Spaceship Earth" until about 1pm when they would finally have their first match. Of course, if that isn't confusing enough....once you get into the quarterfinals...we go from having three teams in a round to two teams in a round. Ok...how do you do that when you have three sets of balls on a field? Thats easy...just eliminate one color and completely change around the field setup. Oh by the way...we're talking 2 out of 3 wins moves on now.

Are you confused yet?

Lets just say, you had to be there to appreciate it. You know...stay up til 1am friday night calculating everyones score so you can figure out the seeds, make up a braket to see who you were playing in the first round the next day, just to find out that you were off by 1 point and the whole bracket you spent half the night working out was complete trash!

:eep Breath::

Like I said....you had to be there to appreciate it.

Til next time
-Professor Grady