We’re just a few days away from the Great Northern Regional at the Alerus Center in Grand Forks, ND! It’s shaping up to be a great event with 55 teams representing 5 states (California, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin) and 3 countries (Canada, China, United States).
Useful links:
FRC-Events
The Blue Alliance
Minnesota FIRST Event Site
Main Webcast
Quad-View Webcast for @Ryan_Swanson 
Safe travels everyone, we are looking forward to the competition!
This event is stacked, with a ton of historically good teams, some of whom are coming off one of the Duluth events last week. I can’t wait to see how it all plays out!
For everyone driving up there, drive safe. We’re supposed to have another storm all day Wednesday, which could impact travel, especially those coming from the cities (or even further south!).
One dropped today, so it’s down to 54. Which, being divisible by 6, is a good number for me.
After watching this, I’m wondering if we’ll get to 54. Pretty sure I’ll be there because I’m scheduled to arrive well before the blizzard hits. But yikes, Thursday looks awful.
It’s going to be quite the change from two weeks ago in Orange County.
Good luck to everyone competing! This looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun.
Also yes, stay safe everyone with the blizzard and all.
Any idea who dropped?
And that blizzard couldn’t be coming at a worse time…
6707 unfortunately had to drop
I am extremely excited for my first and last competition as a student! #RookieYear:stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes: Drive safe everyone!!
It’s certainly your first, but it may not be your last! Champs and state exist
Can’t wait to see everyone at this competition. Can’t stress enough to drive safe. Weather looks pretty ugly as of right now.
My drive to Grand Forks today looks pretty clear, but I’m coming across from Northern Minnesota. The route up I-94/I-29 looks like it will be pretty bad by noon.
If you’re headed to Grand Forks, remember you’re driving into a blizzard. Not a twin city or Duluth blizzard, but a North Dakota blizzard with heavy snow and 50 MPH winds. The weather service says it will not only be the worst storm this year, it may be the worst storm in years.
In the event that it turns into a Laura Ingles Wilder style event, you are going to want heavy boots, heavy pants, a heavy coat and a good hat and gloves. This is the kind of storm where unprepared people die.
I look forward to seeing all of you over there! It’s going to be a fun event.
</Dad mode>
If you’re coming to grand forks, I hope you get here before the sun goes down on Wednesday. If not, you probably aren’t getting here till Friday sometime.
We’ve had a few teams drop due to the blizzard, unfortunately. Stay safe getting here, everyone!
As of this evening we’re down to 52 teams. It’s windy here, but for the moment, there’s still no snow. There’s rain and snow all around Grand Forks but our sunny dispositions are keeping the rain and snow away for the moment.
Field setup went very well. Started at 1:00, essentially done by 5:00. It’s the same field used last week at the Lake Superior Regional and a mix of the crew from both Duluth regionals. This is the second event for most of the volunteers so everyone knows their role.
I’d say stay frosty everyone, but that’s not going to be a problem this weekend.
You guys are doing incredible work! I’m sure I speak for all FRC participants that attend our local events when I say that the effort put in by Regional Leadership and all the volunteers is immensely appreciated. This weather (both during Duluth and now for Grand Forks) would kill the events if it weren’t for FUM having some of the best volunteers in the world.
This is quickly becoming an event to remember. In addition to the blizzard, some teams have members that were planning to come up today that are stuck until the highway opens back up at 9am tomorrow - and some of them are bringing critical items with them, like bumpers!
And then this afternoon we got a leak in the roof that started dripping on an entire row of pits. Huge thanks to the venue for helping us address it quickly and get new pits set up for those teams to move into.
Everyone kept their spirits up and had a great time! Can’t wait until tomorrow!
Here’s what I’ve got for predictions as of the end of Friday
| Team | average rank | 1 | Top 4 | Top 8 | Top 12 | Top 15 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4009 | 2.2 | 54% | 90% | >99% | >99% | >99% |
| 3293 | 3.2 | 13% | 80% | 99% | >99% | >99% |
| 2502 | 4.4 | 13% | 57% | 92% | >99% | >99% |
| 3750 | 5.5 | 5% | 37% | 90% | >99% | >99% |
| 5172 | 5.8 | 4% | 35% | 84% | 98% | >99% |
| 3082 | 5.9 | 4% | 35% | 81% | 97% | >99% |
| 8 | 6.4 | 7% | 32% | 74% | 94% | 99% |
| 4539 | 6.5 | <1% | 23% | 82% | 98% | >99% |
| 4506 | 9.8 | <1% | 8% | 40% | 78% | 91% |
| 876 | 11.5 | <1% | 1% | 22% | 67% | 84% |
| 2883 | 12.9 | <1% | <1% | 15% | 54% | 75% |
| 2500 | 15.6 | <1% | <1% | 2% | 28% | 53% |
| 3042 | 15.8 | <1% | <1% | 3% | 25% | 51% |
| 5929 | 16.4 | <1% | <1% | 3% | 24% | 48% |
| 3313 | 16.6 | <1% | <1% | 1% | 25% | 49% |
| 6175 | 16.8 | <1% | <1% | 1% | 21% | 42% |
| 4549 | 17.4 | <1% | <1% | 2% | 17% | 37% |
| 2549 | 17.6 | <1% | <1% | 2% | 18% | 40% |
| 7048 | 18.5 | <1% | <1% | 2% | 18% | 35% |
| 4360 | 18.5 | <1% | <1% | 3% | 15% | 31% |
| 5658 | 19.7 | <1% | <1% | 2% | 12% | 25% |
| 7677 | 21.8 | <1% | <1% | <1% | 3% | 11% |
| 2227 | 23.0 | <1% | <1% | <1% | 5% | 13% |
| 4239 | 25.9 | <1% | <1% | <1% | 1% | 4% |
| 3292 | 26.7 | <1% | <1% | <1% | 2% | 5% |
| 2077 | 26.9 | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% | 3% |
| 877 | 28.7 | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% | 2% |
| 4229 | 29.1 | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% | 2% |
| 141 | 29.9 | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% |
| 7532 | 30.3 | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% |
| 2512 | 31.1 | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% |
| 2508 | 31.2 | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% |
| 4656 | 31.5 | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% |
| 2239 | 33.1 | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% |
| 2175 | 33.8 | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% |
| 2177 | 35.6 | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% |
| 3298 | 36.0 | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% |
| 3278 | 36.0 | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% |
| 3300 | 36.6 | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% |
| 2169 | 37.3 | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% |
| 4181 | 39.8 | - | - | <1% | <1% | <1% |
| 3839 | 41.7 | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% |
| 4818 | 42.2 | - | - | - | <1% | <1% |
| 7529 | 43.6 | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% |
| 3026 | 44.5 | - | - | <1% | <1% | <1% |
| 7257 | 45.0 | - | - | - | - | <1% |
| 7578 | 45.1 | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% |
| 4646 | 45.6 | - | - | <1% | <1% | <1% |
| 6709 | 46.5 | - | - | <1% | <1% | <1% |
| 3036 | 50.3 | - | - | - | <1% | <1% |
| 5998 | 50.7 | - | - | - | - | <1% |
| 3277 | 51.6 | - | - | - | - | - |
Have fun strategizing, maybe this’ll help you
Can you explain to me how you have 3292 having a higher chance of being in top 12 and 25 than 4239? Even though you have 4239 with a better average rank than 3292.
The outputs are from a Monte Carlo simulation, which means sample errors of ±1% can and do exist just due to chance, so probably not best to get too hung up on them, that said, I think there is actually something meaningful here, so I’ll talk more about it as a teaching opportunity even though the direct actual impact is small.
3292 and 4239 both presently have played 7 matches and have 11 RPs. If we look at 3292’s upcoming matches, we see the following estimations of win probabilities and RP probabilities:
| rocket RP | HAB RP | win prob | average RPs | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| qm 67 | 23.8% | 56.1% | 46.9% | 1.7 |
| qm 76 | 14.3% | 62.6% | 22.9% | 1.2 |
| qm 82 | 22.3% | 66.0% | 29.5% | 1.5 |
Likewise for 4239, we have:
| rocket RP | HAB RP | win prob | average RPs | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| qm 66 | 0.0% | 40.0% | 19.2% | 0.8 |
| qm 73 | 12.1% | 81.3% | 60.2% | 2.1 |
| qm 80 | 0.0% | 57.4% | 69.4% | 2.0 |
(I can go more into how these are calculated if you want, but for now just take them as given)
If we sum average RPs, we get 4.4 for 3292 and 4.9 for 4239, so we would expect that 4239 on average ranks higher, which is indeed the case! However, look at the possible variation in RPs. Yeah, 3292 is an underdog in all of their matches, so 0RP matches are more likely for them, but since they have a reasonable shot at getting the rocket RP, 4RP matches are also much more likely for them than they are for 4239. All this means is that I expect their range of possible ranks to be larger than it is for 3292.
Here’s a gif showing their ranking probabilities side by side. The center of mass (average) of 4239’s distribution is better, but look at the high seed tail and you’ll see that 3292 has a slightly better chance of getting way up there (mostly due to the possibility of getting a surprise rocket RP:
What a wild race for the 1 seed! 5172 looked basically out of contention after losing their very first two matches (and missing the HAB RP in one), but after that they received 3+ RPs in every single one of their matches, clawing their way back up to the top spot. Here’s a continuous estimation of their ranking chances:
This was a wonderful event! We were sad to get knocked out in quarterfinals, but we were very pleased with our performance. Thanks to 4539 and 4656 for being awesome alliance partners. Looking forward to North Star in a week and a half. -2549 Millerbots
