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Re: Not ready...yet.

Posted by P.J. Baker, Engineer on team #177, Bobcat Robotics, from South Windsor High School and International Fuel Cells.

Posted on 5/6/99 11:05 AM MST


In Reply to: Not ready...yet. posted by Daniel on 5/6/99 8:04 AM MST:



I agree. If you read my post below, you'll see a potential solution to the problem of teams having different #'s of Q matches from the regionals. It goes like this:

Let every teams regional average be weighted the same in the seeding matches at Nationals, regardless of whether they played 6 or 60 regional matches.



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still...

Posted by Daniel, Student on team #192, Gunn Robotics Team, from Henry M Gunn Senior High School and NASA Ames.

Posted on 5/6/99 12:04 PM MST


In Reply to: Re: Not ready...yet. posted by P.J. Baker on 5/6/99 11:05 AM MST:



Even so, it's such an unconstant variable. Some teams don't even go to any...

I guess I can live with being a skeptic... =)


-Daniel

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some 'unfair' modifications to make it 'fair'

Posted by Joe Johnson, Engineer on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.

Posted on 5/6/99 7:55 PM MST


In Reply to: Not ready...yet. posted by Daniel on 5/6/99 8:04 AM MST:



Okay, how about these (not always fair) suggestions for making it more fair for teams that go to more or less than 1 regional:

Give every team a starting Qualifying Point (QP) total equal to 6 times their average from all the regionals they attended of their average QP/match for each regional. Teams that go to no regionals get 6 times the average from all the regionals of the average QM/match.

For example, if a team scored 100 QP/Match at Chicago, 300 QP/Match in Philly, and 400 QP/match in Ypsi, then they would start the Nationals with 1200 QP (or 200 QP/Match). NOTE: ((100+200+300)/3)*6 = 1200

Further if
CA average QP/Match = 101,
IL average QP/Match = 99,
FL average QP/Match = 105,
PA average QP/Match = 95,
CT average QP/Match = 150,
NJ average QP/Match = 75,
MI average QP/Match = 75,

Then every team that went to no regionals would get 600 QP at the start of the nationals (or 100 QP/Match). NOTE: ((101+99+105+95+150+75+75)/7)*6 = 600

Assuming 6 QM's at the Nationals, then a team's average QP/match for the Nationals would then be weighted of 1/2 from the Qualifying Matches at the Nationals and 1/2 from Qualifying Matches from the Regionals (except for the no regional teams which 1/2 get an unfair lift and 1/2 get an unfair drag, life's not fair ;-)

Continuing with the example above if the team that went to the 3 regionals was paired with at team that went to no regionals and they won with 300 points, then their new QP/Match would be 300 and 214 respectively. NOTE: (1200+3*300)/7 = 300, (600+3*300)/7= 214

The actual QP/match would probably have to be normalized themselves to take out differences in scoring from regional to regional, but that is only a minor detail.

By doing this, everyone's QM's at the Nationals would be worth the same in terms of how much a particular bad or good match moved a teams QP/match, but some of the information gained from the regional would be incorporated into the National performance.

Itis a bit complicated to explain, but I don't think that it would be any trouble to implement and I think that it is a way to address some of the concerns folks have bought up.

What do you think?

Joe J.


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Re: does that really make it more fair?

Posted by Daniel, Student on team #192, Gunn Robotics Team, from Henry M Gunn Senior High School and NASA Ames.

Posted on 5/6/99 8:11 PM MST


In Reply to: some 'unfair' modifications to make it 'fair' posted by Joe Johnson on 5/6/99 7:55 PM MST:



I'm sorry but I still can't see what problem you're trying to solve here. If you're trying to make the game more fair, I can't see how that does the job. Teams that don't go to regionals could get cheated. In fact, it is most likely going to be the rookie teams that don't go to regionals. Those are exactly the people who we don't want to feel cheated. We need this thing to grow, not shrink.

Is it maybe something else?

Perhaps I'm just confused...


Lemme know.
-Daniel
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weighing bags of gold with an odd scale...

Posted by Joe Johnson, Engineer on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.

Posted on 5/6/99 8:52 PM MST


In Reply to: Re: does that really make it more fair? posted by Daniel on 5/6/99 8:11 PM MST:



This is a long metaphor, but stick with me.

Suppose you have 200+ bags of gold and you want rank each bag of gold from heaviest to lightest.

But... You don't have very good scale: It is just a balance. Further, you must weigh 4 randomly selected bags at a time, 2 on each side of the balance. Even worse, suppose the balance is not necessarily on a level base, but rather the base is randomly tipped for each measurement, adding even more uncertainty to each result.

The only real way to accomplish the task is by making lots of measurement.

It is clear (at least to me) from the Nationals, that 6 measurements per bag of gold is not sufficient to accurately rank the bags of gold. Many light bags are going to be estimated to be heavy simply because they were randomly weighed with 6 heavy bags or because they were weighed against 6 pairs of light bags (or even against one heavy bag and an empty bag!). The same is true for heavy bags that would be estimated to be light simply because of the luck of which bags was on their side of the balance or which bags happened to be on the other side of the teeter-totter. In addition, there is that random tipping of the base to deal with (a broken arm, a bad battery, a blown fuse, etc.).

It isn't exacty the most efficient means of ranking bags, but it is kind of exciting to watch.

The road to more accurate bag ranking runs right though the the town of More Weighings, but with 200+ bags to rank we don't have time to even look in that direction yet alone go there.

But... as it turns out, we have already weighed some of these bags against each other at the regionals. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to use these measurement somehow?

What many folks are proposing (myself included) is that we use some of these measurements, but try to do so in a way that does not totaly take all the excitement and uncertainty out of the important weighings at the Nationals.

As to it being fairer, I can't say.

I do think that such proposals would be more likely to produce a heavier group of 'Heaviest 16' bags of gold than would otherwise be the case.

To me, this seems more fair. To a particular bag of gold that would have been judged in the Heaviest 16 except that it didn't participate in an earlier weighings, it would not seem fair at all.

While I sympathize with such bags of gold, I think that the improved odds of getting a more rational result is worth it.

My 2 cents.

Joe J.


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New bags may get discouraged...

Posted by Daniel, Student on team #192, Gunn Robotics Team, from Henry M Gunn Senior High School and NASA Ames.

Posted on 5/6/99 10:50 PM MST


In Reply to: weighing bags of gold with an odd scale... posted by Joe Johnson on 5/6/99 8:52 PM MST:



I completely agree that more trials are needed. I'm sure you've seen my messages stating just that. But if the trials you use are fake, it just becomes another 'tilt of the scale' (to use your analogy).

Although I do believe it's true that the proposed system may make the upper teams more accurately ranked, I fear it could discourage new teams that don't go to regionals.

The new guys are exactly the wrong people to discourage.

This is about inspiration, remember? We can't have people dropping out because of an inherent unfairness in the system. In fact, if I'm thinking about this correctly, it would be worse than 'tilting the scale'. It would be more like placing it on a slanted table. The unfairness that you were referring to was due to ill luck. The proposed unfairness is actually designed into the system. Something just doesn't feel right about that. I can't force myself to believe that a good system can TRY to be unfair. Unfortunately I think the proposed system does just that.

Although the current system is flawed, it isn’t trying to be unfair.

Perhaps I'm completely off my rocker here. Perhaps rookie teams often make it to regionals. I really don't know. Do any of you know what the general trend is for rookie teams?


Thoughts?
-Daniel
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let me say this about that...

Posted by Joe Johnson, Engineer on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.

Posted on 5/6/99 11:35 PM MST


In Reply to: New bags may get discouraged... posted by Daniel on 5/6/99 10:50 PM MST:



Three things:

1) I don't think that this system unfairly hurts rookies and even if it did, teams are not rookies forever. There are many many many disadvantages to being new to this FIRST game. Yet, most of us get through it. Many not only get through it, but rise to the challenge.


2) If the teams that only go to the Nationals are a representative sample of all teams in terms of performance, then, on average, the system proposed neither hurts nor helps such teams because they are presumed to be average teams in the presence of no wieghings to the contrary and half of the teams would be above average and half would be below average. However, I argue that the teams that only go to the Nationals are NOT a representative sample and infact are likely to have a mean performance level significantly below the average of teams going to at least one regional before attending the Nationals (see explanation below). If this theory is correct, then the scales are tilted in their FAVOR not against them.


3) I think that it is in the interest of FIRST to encourage teams to attend a regional before attending the Nationals. Perhaps a system that is perceived to be a disadvantage to teams that only go the Nationals is a good thing, providing an extra incentive to teams to find a way to get to a regional.


Joe J.


EXPLANATION OF STATEMENT ABOVE:

3 reasons why I believe that the group of teams only attending the Nationals are not a representative sample of all FIRST teams in terms of robot performance:

First of all, funding does matter somewhat and teams that can only go to the Nationals are more likely to have lower funding for their robot.

Second, as has been much discussed, going to a regional gives teams a chance to improve their robots and their driver skill.

Third, FIRST rewards fanatics and teams that only go to the Nationals are less likely to be FIRST fanantics than the typical team going to one or more regionals.

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Re: let me say this about that...

Posted by P.J. Baker, Engineer on team #177, Bobcat Robotics, from South Windsor High School and International Fuel Cells.

Posted on 5/7/99 8:24 AM MST


In Reply to: let me say this about that... posted by Joe Johnson on 5/6/99 11:35 PM MST:



I pretty much agree with everything here. I do think that the regionals should count for less than half of seeding points at Nationals (to encourage improvement between regionals and nationals)

I think that FIRST should discourage teams only going to Nationals (although it shouldn't be prohibited until every team has less than a 5 hour drive to a regional). For a rookie team, a regional is likely to be less overwhelming than Nationals, they are more likely to get into the elimination round, and they don't suffer the huge momentum loss of shipping a robot and then twiddling their thumbs for two months waiting to compete. To me, the huge downtime is the least inspirational thing in all of FIRST. I think that it would be even more so for a rookie team.


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my 'bag of gold' is convinced.

Posted by Daniel, Student on team #192, Gunn Robotics Team, from Henry M Gunn Senior High School and NASA Ames.

Posted on 5/7/99 8:34 AM MST


In Reply to: let me say this about that... posted by Joe Johnson on 5/6/99 11:35 PM MST:



I guess you got me there. Good points!

You see, I was basing my points on personal experience. This year my team managed to attend a regional for the first time in our three year history. For our first two years, we were not 'average'. Both years we finished within the top 30, the second of which we were seeded sixth. Not too shabby. And this is without a regional.

Under your proposed system, my team would have been dragged down to a certain extent. But I see now that my team is probably not representative of the majority of teams that don't go to regionals. In fact, my team didn't not go due to lack of funding. We had plenty of money last year, we just didn't have a regional within a practical distance.

This year we did...
Thanks NASA!!

Sounds like this thing may be workable after all!
-Daniel
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Re: New bags may get discouraged...

Posted by Andrew Trax, Coach on team #180, S.P.A.M., from Southfork,Martin Co. High and UTC.

Posted on 5/7/99 4:41 AM MST


In Reply to: New bags may get discouraged... posted by Daniel on 5/6/99 10:50 PM MST:



: I completely agree that more trials are needed. I'm sure you've seen my messages stating just that. But if the trials you use are fake, it just becomes another 'tilt of the scale' (to use your analogy).

: Although I do believe it's true that the proposed system may make the upper teams more accurately ranked, I fear it could discourage new teams that don't go to regionals.

: The new guys are exactly the wrong people to discourage.

: This is about inspiration, remember? We can't have people dropping out because of an inherent unfairness in the system. In fact, if I'm thinking about this correctly, it would be worse than 'tilting the scale'. It would be more like placing it on a slanted table. The unfairness that you were referring to was due to ill luck. The proposed unfairness is actually designed into the system. Something just doesn't feel right about that. I can't force myself to believe that a good system can TRY to be unfair. Unfortunately I think the proposed system does just that.

: Although the current system is flawed, it isn’t trying to be unfair.

: Perhaps I'm completely off my rocker here. Perhaps rookie teams often make it to regionals. I really don't know. Do any of you know what the general trend is for rookie teams?

:
: Thoughts?
: -Daniel

I agree with you, Daniel. But the obvious way to take the 'slant out of
the table' is to make the regionals preliminary to a national playoff and
not include those 'bags of gold' that skew the results. Then you have
new problems such as financing for regional winners that aren't prepare
for a trip to Florida.
And the solution to that is to make the trip to
EPCOT to compete in the Nationals the prize for winning at a regional
provided FIRST could find the financial support to pay for 60 teams (10
regionals X top 6 teams approx.) 20 players per team, over 300 hotel rooms,
1000 airline tickets... It would be expensive but with the right backers
it could happen.
As much as I dislike the idea of only going to Nationals if you win the
right (we were a rookie team in '98 that only went to National), I know that
it would take a lot of the 'luck factor' out of the game if they stick
with the alliance format.
That would also limit each team to one regional. And we've heard the complaints
that the teams with deep pockets get an unfair advantage by travelling to
multiple regionals. And I agree that it's a waste to knock yourself out for
for months and only compete once or twice. So, give the robots back to the
teams between the Regionals (held on the same weekend) and the National
and hold Invitationals in between (?). Let everyone tweak and primp their
robots as much as they want before Nationals for, say, three weeks.
It would make Nationals one tough game and probably worthy of national
air time.

(I really think something like this will happen anyway, like it or not).

Mrs. Trax



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Re: Or we could try the easy way...

Posted by Tom Vanderslice, Student on team #275, ORHS/AST/Hitachi, from Academy of Science and Technology and Hitachi.

Posted on 5/5/99 7:03 PM MST


In Reply to: Re: Or we could try the easy way... posted by Chris on 5/5/99 12:50 PM MST:



: I think the luck factor would just shift to a different area. The luck factor would be in the strength of the group of 26 that you're in. A decent team could get lucky and be put in with a group of lesser robots and make it to the dance while the same team might get put in a group with a bunch of good teams and finish poorly. It's a lot like (oh no, another sports reference) Major League Baseball a few years ago when 4 teams in the American League East had better records than the champion of the American League West. The A.L West champion made it to the playoffs and only one of the 4 better teams in the A.L. East made it. That system isn't necessarily fair either.

: -Chris

AHHHHH...it's that word again...'fair'...now..i'm all for fair...fair is
good...and whatever system they decide to use ought to be as close to
'fair' as they can possibly think to make it....BUT...nothing will
EVER be fair...there is not a single system ever that declared a winner
that somebody could not come up with some reason it wasn't fair...
(ex. 'A tournament isn't fair b/c what if i play a good team early'...ok
well...you still lost to the good team...so does it matter whether it
was early or late...i know there is a pride issue...but you still lost...
and SOMEONE has to lose to them early...another ex. this year 'scoring
was centered around offense...defense wasn't rewarded'...everyone was
told from teh beginning how it worked...and that was the point of alliances...
the offensive robots made the finals and hte defensive robots had to
depend on being selected as a partner...)

Bascically what i'm trying to say is NOTHING will ever be fair so that
isn't exactly the best argument....
I tend to agree with P.J. that splitting it up into divisions randomly
and have the best teams from each division pick from whoever they want
would be good...but then again...I don't make the rules..i just have to
deal with them...

my 2 cents,
Tom
Team 275

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Re: Or we could try the easy way...

Posted by Elaine Anselm, Engineer on team #191, X-Cats, from Jos Wilson High School and Xerox.

Posted on 5/5/99 8:27 PM MST


In Reply to: Re: Or we could try the easy way... posted by Tom Vanderslice on 5/5/99 7:03 PM MST:



I agree with Tom. When the results are not the what we would like, they don't seem fair. Nothing is ever going to seem fair to everyone. If we look at making sure the competition is fair it is way too easy to lose site of what FIRST is all about. I have said it many times before. I really don;t care who ends up on top as long as there is good competition to get there. To that end, FIRST did a terrific job this year. Yes there were good robots not in the finals, but the robots there were good. To that I say it was a very good year. Our team is in agreement, the alliances are the best thing FIRST has done in a long time.

Elaine


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You just made my point

Posted by Chris, Coach on team #308, Walled Lake Monster, from Walled Lake Schools and TRW Automotive Electronics.

Posted on 5/6/99 6:05 AM MST


In Reply to: Re: Or we could try the easy way... posted by Tom Vanderslice on 5/5/99 7:03 PM MST:



: Bascically what i'm trying to say is NOTHING will ever be fair so that
: isn't exactly the best argument....

That was the point I was making. I just didn't come right out and say it.


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I'm not so sure...

Posted by Daniel, Student on team #192, Gunn Robotics Team, from Henry M Gunn Senior High School and NASA Ames.

Posted on 5/5/99 6:02 PM MST


In Reply to: Re: Or we could try the easy way... posted by P.J. Baker on 5/5/99 10:42 AM MST:



Thoughts? Yup. Here goes...


: Play a round robinish tournament with the smaller group.

Is that really better than just increasing the amount of Q's? I see that your method would help, but I still think more matches would be more effective. Besides, I personally would rather have more matches anyway! I think the three day national competition is bursting at the seams. Give 'em a fourth!


: Give a 'lucky' team one 540 point win and 5, 100 point losses (a very good losing score). Their average QP is 353, decent but below this year's top 16 (We were 14th with about a 460 average).

I see your point, but how many teams lose matches with 100 points? I would bet at least three out of five of those 100 point rounds would be a win, boosting that average QP to 453. That's just about where you guys were at. 100 points is not a bad enough score to make the assumption that it would be a loss, it's really not a bad score at all.

Just to make it a little clearer, say a team gets lucky for two matches. One 540 and one around 380. Both are very good scores. With just those two scores ALONE, if we average in zeros for the other 4 matches, they have the same 460 that you had. And should a team that gets zeros really be in the finals?


: There has been a lot of discussion about defense not being rewarded in the seeding rounds. This is obviously true, but ... FIRST gave us all the same set of rules on day one. It was obvious then that they wanted to reward scoring in matches.

Very true. However, I think you may have misinterpreted what I was saying. I am not griping about how unfair it was that my 'bot didn't get in the top 16. I never expected to. I counted on getting picked. I just think maybe it was a mistake for FIRST to value high scores so much. In my opinion, defense is a very valuable aspect of sports and if FIRST wants to be sport-like, they should value defense just as they do offence. Why not reward both? Seed on wins and use QMs as tie breakers! High scores win matches just as well as defense does. It allows for more flexible playing strategy. Besides, I don't agree that defense isn't as exciting as high scores. I was sitting on the edge of my seat when I saw Wildstang's basket being held down...


Any of this making sense?
-Daniel





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Re: I'm not so sure...

Posted by P.J. Baker, Engineer on team #177, Bobcat Robotics, from South Windsor High School and International Fuel Cells.

Posted on 5/5/99 7:57 PM MST


In Reply to: I'm not so sure... posted by Daniel on 5/5/99 6:02 PM MST:



Of course you make sense.

:
: Is that really better than just increasing the amount of Q's? I see that your method would help, but I still think more matches would be more effective. Besides, I personally would rather have more matches anyway! I think the three day national competition is bursting at the seams. Give 'em a fourth!

No. Nothing is better than increasing the number of matches played. It is better from every angle except logistics and cost. I was just trying to suggest a reasonable alternative that would let us keep the 3 day format.

:
: I see your point, but how many teams lose matches with 100 points? I would bet at least three out of five of those 100 point rounds would be a win, boosting that average QP to 453. That's just about where you guys were at. 100 points is not a bad enough score to make the assumption that it would be a loss, it's really not a bad score at all.
Just to make it a little clearer, say a team gets lucky for two matches. One 540 and one around 380. Both are very good scores. With just those two scores ALONE, if we average in zeros for the other 4 matches, they have the same 460 that you had. And should a team that gets zeros really be in the finals?

We could go around forever on this one. But...I think you'll have a hard time finding a 'bad' 'bot that can scores of 540 and 380 in a 6 match schedule - even if they were paired with G-Force in 3 matches and the Bobcat in the other 3 =)

:
: Very true. However, I think you may have misinterpreted what I was saying. I am not griping about how unfair it was that my 'bot didn't get in the top 16. I never expected to. I counted on getting picked. I just think maybe it was a mistake for FIRST to value high scores so much. In my opinion, defense is a very valuable aspect of sports and if FIRST wants to be sport-like, they should value defense just as they do offence. Why not reward both? Seed on wins and use QMs as tie breakers! High scores win matches just as well as defense does. It allows for more flexible playing strategy. Besides, I don't agree that defense isn't as exciting as high scores. I was sitting on the edge of my seat when I saw Wildstang's basket being held down...

Two people have missed my point on this one, I apologize for being unclear. I think that FIRST tried to emphasize scoring in a game that was most exciting to watch when it was played defensively. The design of the game led some teams to build great robots, that just weren't going to be big scorers, which is what they needed to be to make waves in the seeding tournament. I believe that FIRST should try to tailor the seeding formula to encourage the game to be played in it's most exciting form, no matter what the game is. This year, the best seeding system probably would have downplayed scoring and emphasized winning (eventhough it was pretty easy for a great team to be 5-1 or 4-2)


Thanks for your comments,

P.J.





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