2014 District Point Model Analysis

Competition Regional Competitions
1

Main Reference: 2014 Projected District Point System

Below are some VERY interesting graphs and stats from the 2/6/14 PNW District Webinar (Video):

http://i.imgur.com/Vrv4feq.png
http://i.imgur.com/Xyf1gkp.png
http://i.imgur.com/96OaUiE.png
^This graph was the most interesting. I’m currently working on a further analysis including the other newer district regions: MAR, NE and our friends in Canada :slight_smile:

The Pacific NW webinar and these graphs inspired me to take my old model and apply the new point system and include average OPR:

PNW 2013

Rank	Team	Points	OPR	OPR Rank
1	1983	130	49.97	4
2	2471	130	52.50	3
3	948	116	65.44	1
4	360	96	31.79	17
5	1425	92	49.91	6
6	1899	89	49.94	5
7	3663	87	46.89	7
8	2046	84	15.58	63
9	1318	76	38.93	12
10	955	74	46.76	8
11	1540	73	26.77	28
12	2907	73	46.26	9
13	1595	70	32.37	16
14	2557	68	26.03	30
15	4089	68	7.83	97
16	2928	66	32.51	15
17	2733	60	21.57	44
18	4061	60	31.35	18
19	4579	60	42.94	10
20	3789	58	22.85	41
21	2930	56	12.28	79
22	3711	56	19.78	51
23	3812	56	53.77	2
24	4125	53	15.34	67
25	4205	52	24.97	34
26	753	48	3.78	117
27	2374	47	29.40	23
28	3219	45	14.42	73
29	4488	45	25.75	31
30	2605	44	28.22	25
31	4512	44	29.02	24
32	488	43	20.15	48
33	2147	43	23.46	40
34	4127	43	36.16	13
35	2635	42	15.40	65
36	492	41	23.48	39
37	3968	41	20.28	47
38	997	40	30.99	20
39	3131	40	12.54	77
40	2811	39	19.61	52
41	2990	37	29.84	22
42	3826	37	30.41	21
43	2412	36	19.98	49
44	4086	36	18.05	54
45	2522	35	26.22	29
46	4681	34	21.65	43
47	3574	33	17.00	57
48	2922	32	23.98	36
49	4772	31	3.46	118
50	2517	30	7.52	98
51	4030	29	23.72	37
52	1258	28	12.34	78
53	3238	28	34.92	14
54	2910	27	15.88	60
55	3681	27	19.07	53
56	847	26	26.91	27
57	4057	26	15.87	61
58	4077	26	15.92	59
59	1294	24	31.25	19
60	3693	23	17.99	56
61	4662	23	3.01	121
62	956	22	23.51	38
63	1359	22	25.26	32
64	2923	22	5.01	108
65	2929	22	22.79	42
66	4060	22	-1.95	140
67	4461	22	4.07	115
68	4495	22	9.85	89
69	4513	22	16.23	58
70	4652	22	15.33	68
71	4692	22	2.60	123
72	4542	21	8.26	94
73	4682	21	6.56	101
74	2944	20	2.73	122
75	2976	19	10.63	85
76	4726	19	2.58	124
77	2411	18	5.17	107
78	2915	18	5.37	106
79	4450	18	41.36	11
80	4560	18	13.13	76
81	4654	18	14.33	74
82	4683	18	15.35	66
83	4038	17	25.04	33
84	4120	17	13.28	75
85	4469	17	19.93	50
86	4457	16	-7.65	154
87	4548	16	3.09	120
88	4559	16	11.95	80
89	4608	16	-9.09	156
90	1510	15	0.96	131
91	2926	15	5.51	104
92	3995	15	-0.86	138
93	4043	15	10.26	87
94	4082	15	-0.56	137
95	4309	15	9.31	91
96	3221	14	8.15	95
97	3860	14	-0.42	136
98	4132	13	-4.35	150
99	4173	13	-2.55	143
100	4180	13	11.43	82
101	2093	12	10.65	84
102	3220	12	9.98	88
103	3587	12	-0.26	135
104	3588	12	21.24	45
105	3787	12	0.67	133
106	3674	11	1.37	129
107	4110	11	4.27	112
108	4304	11	0.84	132
109	957	10	-3.94	148
110	1432	10	9.28	92
111	1778	10	5.77	103
112	2002	10	5.87	102
113	2555	10	3.98	116
114	3268	10	15.11	70
115	3393	10	26.93	26
116	3684	10	20.36	46
117	3712	10	5.50	105
118	3781	10	14.51	72
119	3801	10	7.44	99
120	2521	9	4.26	113
121	2542	9	15.10	71
122	2660	9	8.08	96
123	4051	9	15.52	64
124	4105	9	-2.56	144
125	4131	9	0.97	130
126	949	8	4.69	111
127	2148	8	4.08	114
128	2149	8	24.46	35
129	2192	8	4.83	109
130	2550	8	15.71	62
131	2903	8	1.40	128
132	2906	8	4.72	110
133	2927	8	18.04	55
134	3223	8	10.41	86
135	3286	8	-5.54	151
136	3586	8	11.19	83
137	3813	8	-0.99	139
138	3576	7	9.71	90
139	3786	7	15.29	69
140	1571	6	3.19	119
141	2898	6	6.57	100
142	3024	6	-2.98	146
143	3070	6	-3.95	149
144	3192	6	11.83	81
145	3636	6	-2.47	142
146	3673	6	-2.84	145
147	3876	6	2.18	126
148	2942	4	1.95	127
149	2980	4	-3.05	147
150	3049	4	-2.40	141
151	3662	4	8.74	93
152	1823	3	-6.93	153
153	3575	3	-8.42	155
154	3218	2	-0.05	134
155	3831	2	2.38	125
156	3237	0	-5.84	152

*Teams underlined were Chairman Winners.

I graphed Teams and sorted by Rank, showing Points vs. OPR:

http://i.imgur.com/6XgKztA.png
*I realize there is a lot of statistical noise. I also didn’t normalize the events.

With all of this in mind:

64 teams would qualify for the District Championship. 10 district Chairman winners, 54 taken from the point system ranking.

Points accrued at the District Championship are worth (3x) as much.
PNW would then send the following (24) teams to the World Championship:
-3 Winning Alliance Members
-3 Chairman’s Winners
-1 Engineering Inspiration
-1 Rookie All Star
-16 Teams based off of the District Point Ranking.

I love the fact that last year, our 156 teams made up slightly more than 6% of the 2509 world team count. This means that we would have filled 6% of the 400 Champ slots.

I really hope that when we are in an entirely unified District System that Regions get a percentage of slots based upon their relative size.

Along with the further analysis of regional representation, I am going to create a 2014 PNW District Point Database here.

I’m super excited for the new District System to play out in the PNW. Good luck teams!

2

Where was the raw data for the first graph obtained? Is there somewhere where it’s already compiled, or was it mined by an individual? How far back does it extend?

3

I would like to know myself, I just shot Kevin a message on Facebook. If I can’t obtain it, I plan on mining what I need myself to expand on graph 3.

4

My theory would be Zondag’s spreadsheet would have most of this data.

5

Being on the District Championship winning alliance does not earn you an automatic spot at World Championship. It is highly likely that you will earn a spot with the points that you earn from being on the winning alliance, but it could be possible that the 2nd pick doesn’t make the cut. This is done to give those teams from the Valleys of Doom a better chance of moving on and tries to minimize the chances of that 16th pick getting a ride on the coat tails of the #1 seed.

6

Yes the data for the first graph is from data presented by FiM.

7

Its interesting, but these graphs don’t really show anything that anyone couldn’t automatically tell you. #1 and #2 alliances are the strongest, and overreward 15th and 16th picks compared to their OPR.

The district model does a better job of ensuring the best robots go to CMP, and consequently, Michigan representation in CMP elims is more indicative of their size in the league.

8

This is incorrect. Winning District Championship does give you a bid to Champs. Those teams are then ‘eliminated’ in regards to looking at standings for the points-based slots.

9

Very cool graphs! Comparing the first two graphs is definitely very cool… it really does show how much of an improvement the district system should make in sending good robots onward!

10

Actually they told us in the last district meeting that winning the Championship does NOT get you an automatic bid to worlds. I don’t really understand it, but if that’s what they decided then that’s what they decided.

11

It’s not automatic but the points involved typical result in it? /speculation

12

That’s correct. There is no automatic bid- but if you think about it, a winning team would be (assuming no backup bots) 30 points for winning multiplied by 3 for being a district championship. That’s 90 points, which should be plenty to put that team in a good position to advance regardless.

13

At least for New England, the winners at DCMP will move on to CMP automatically, as mentioned at the bottom of this link… http://www.nefirst.org/2014/02/04/ne-first-point-structure-faq/

I’m not sure if this is a global FIRST decision or an NEFIRST decision… I don’t think it is mentioned in either this blog post (http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/blog-District-Award-Allocations-and-Kickoff-Taping) or the official points supplement (http://www3.usfirst.org/sites/default/files/uploadedFiles/Robotics_Programs/FRC/Resources/FRC_District_Standard_Points_Ranking_System.pdf).

14

For the lower seeds (5-8), it helps all 3 qualify. If you are the 3rd pick on a 1-4 alliance, that might not get enough points for you to make it, because if you face a 5-8 seed in the finals, all 3 of those bots will have more points then a 13-16th picked bot.

I will say this most likely won’t happen, but if a team this year wins the championship but does not make it to worlds on points, I think there will be a huge outrage, and I will fight to make it so the winners make it to worlds, because thats how it should be no matter what.

15

This is the way I understand it - but I’m checking in on this. Thanks for the patience!

16

There are some other interesting observations from analysis of the 2013 district events using the Unified District Points Model.

Perhaps the most interesting is the basic histogram of points per event. The 17 district events held during the 2013 season had the following distribution:

As expected this shows a multimodal distribution which roughly corresponds to one component for teams who don’t make the eliminations (tall bump to the left) another broader component for teams receiving seeding points then a long tail for teams reaching the last stages of elimination.
This year there are 39 districts, a large jump from last year’s 17 events so there will be more data and we’ll get a better model of the underlying distribution…

The second observation is the impact of district size. From a team perspective the majority of points are given for seeding/elimination performance. These are always split between 24 teams that make the eliminations so at smaller events where the likelihood of getting to elims is higher there is a correspondingly higher average point score per team.

In 2013 the largest district had 43 teams and the smallest 31 with an average point score of 24.4 and 29.2 respectively. This year the spread in size across all Districts is even greater with the largest event at 45 teams (Bridgewater-Raritan in MAR) and smallest event at 28 teams (Mt Vernon in PNW). The expected points per team just based on event size would be 23.8 and 31.0 respectively.

The following table shows the expected (average) points for hypothetical teams attending the two smallest or two largest events in each of the Districts:


Dist  Smallest    pts   Largest    pts  Diff
MAR     33, 34   55.8    40, 40   49.1   6.6
PNW     28, 29   61.3    35, 35   54.4   6.9
FiM     31, 35   56.4    40, 40   50.6   5.8
NE      32, 33   56.7    40, 40   50.6   6.1

So choosing smaller events gives a 6 to 7 point advantage or almost as much as the rookie bonus.

Finally the graph below shows the average total points scored split by team qualification score.

It’s not a surprise to see the points increase as a team wins more matches, but above 8 wins the average points per event grows far more quickly. Seeding points make a small difference but this is mostly due to the same observation as above that 70% of all district events were won by the top alliance (and every district event was won by a top 3 alliance).

17

Nice job!

This is really interesting, and a much bigger point swing than I would have expected.

18

Following up - this was a misunderstanding on my part. Teams who win the District Championship do not receive auto-bids to the FIRST Championship, but as you smart people already figured out, they’re going to slide to the top of the invite list because of winning anyway.

Post is updated. Life is an iterative process.

19

+1

Hope this clears up any confusion I’ve created:

  1. Rookie Advantage Points
  • Teams in their first season (“Rookies”) will receive 10 points
  • Teams in their second season will receive 5 points

  • Rookie season used for calculations is based on FIRST records
  1. Qualification Round Performance
  • Teams will receive 2 points for each match they win
  • Teams will receive 1 point for each match they tie

  • Teams do not receive points for surrogate rounds or rounds in which they are disqualified^
  1. Alliance Selection Results
  • Alliance Captains (#1 to #8) will receive points equal to 17 minus their captain number
  • Drafted teams (Picks #1 to #16) will receive points equal to 17 minus their acceptance order number

  • Points are based on positions at the conclusion of alliance selection, not at the end of qualification rounds
  1. Elimination Round Performance
  • Each member of the alliance that wins a given round (quarterfinals, semifinals or finals) will receive 5 points for each match in which their robot participated
  • Backup robots will receive points in place of the replaced robot starting at the point of the replacement (even if that falls mid-round)

  • Points are only awarded to an alliance that advances. An eliminated alliance receives no points in the round in which they were eliminated even if they won a match in that series
  1. Awards Received
  • Teams will receive 5 points for each judged award won
  • Teams that win the Engineering Inspiration or Rookie All-Star awards will receive an additional 3 points

  • The team that wins the Chairman's award will receive an additional 5 points

  • Only judged awards receive points (performance based awards do not receive award points)

  • Only awards presented to a team accumulate points (i.e. Deans List or awards to a person do not earn district ranking points)

Not that it would affect us in the PNW, but I’m curious how NEF will handle Legacy teams. Legacy and HOF teams get a championship ticket regardless, but does that have an effect on how many teams get sent to Champs? I’m wondering as FIRST reaches critical mass if they’ll lump these teams in with the total amount of championship slots a district will get…

20

This was obviously a big deal for us. Currently, our six Legacy and HOF teams (FRC 23, 126, 151, 175, 190, 236) do not affect our 24 slots under the Unified Point Model, nor does any auto-bid team in any other district. Consequently, this also means some of them are choosing to skip the District Championship to give other teams an opportunity to play on a bigger stage, which has its good and bad points, but is understandable.