pic: Sum of team numbers versus match number in Curie

[The Lucas]

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

How many of you have read the paper describing the mathematics and reasoning algorithm of this year's new match scheduling software? You can read it here: http://www.idleloop.com/matchmaker/. For the record, this software was written (for free) by two mentors from team 1318, and was meant to address the criticisms from past years. In fact Tom and Cathy wrote it because they despised some of the "we seem to have the same partners in every match" problems. It seems to have fixed that. What I'm guessing might be missing in the algorithm is the assumption that "team numbers determine robot quality." The algorithm is trying to minimize the number of times a given team sees another specific team as an opponent or alliance partner, to make sure the red/blue alliance experience is close to 50-50, to smooth out match separation (to assure no back-to-back matches), and what Cathy and Tom call "round uniformity." Making sure the team numbers are smoothly distributed was not a factor in the algorithm.

Again, can't stress this enough, everyone read the excellent white paper that describes the MatchMaker, especially if you are going to criticize. I also recommend downloading and playing with the free version generously provided. This version of the software is also very useful for find potential problems (probably one of the reasons it is available) as Joe did in this thread. The problems that make the scheduler less than optimal:

1. The Team List is fed into the algorithm in numerical order. This leads to the problem displayed above where the numerical team difference correlates with the probability of being in the same match. The problem is not the scheduling, but the ordering of the team list. It is easy to fix, after reading in the list, randomize it (equal probability of any team being in any slot) then fill it into the schedule.
2. The Algorithm allows you to choose a Minimum Match Separation (MMS) but most scorekeepers just use Default (I also heard the GUI selections for MMS are too limited for the scorekeepers). The default MMS is not optimal and limits the the algorithms ability to achieve its other goals (leads to more repeats than necessary). A more optimal default MMS need to be determined through testing. However, I believe current default MMS minus 2 is pretty close.

These are minor bugs in a first year program. Neither of them are fundamental flaws in the core of the algorithm, they are just poor inputs (similar to the old adage, Garbage in, Garbage out). I wouldn't be surprised if they are already fixed.

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

Adding a factor for "balanced mix of rookies and older teams" would probably not be impossible,

NO! Don't add this factor. This factor spawned the Algorithm of Doom in 07. This would cause the problem it the other direction (inverse correlation) making it more likely to pair the lower numbers and high. There should be no correlation between team number and paring probability. Fix the 2 minor problems, Default Match separation and Team list order. That's all, don't change anything else, compile it, use it for years.

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

I also think someone ought to thank Cathy and Tom for their contribution of this software.

Thank you Tom and Cathy for writing this software, documenting it and making it available to teams. The software was great this year and I'm sure it will be virtually perfect next year and on.