Playing the most matches in 2025

FIRST General Forum
1

It’s that time of the year!

Event preferencing is currently open for Reefscape, and as per tradition, I’ve taken a look at the schedule to answer the burning question: How many qualification matches could a team play in 2025, ignoring district borders, registration constraints, cost, and the mental toll of traveling/competing for 34 of 36 days in a row.

To see how this stacks up to past seasons, read my 2024 calendar, @YukiKabuki’s 2023 season, and the one that started it all - @jtrv’s 2022 post

Some notes: To maximize matches, I prioritized district events over regionals. I only allowed irregular load-ins with permission from local authorities. Also, please keep in mind that event timings can change! 2024 got completely destroyed by this. Sorry :slight_smile:

The Schedule:

1. Compete at ISR #1 - Feb 23-25

2. Compete at ISR #2 - Feb 25-27

  • Flight 1: TLV (Tel Aviv) → JFK (New York) – Fri, Feb 28; 12:45am - 5:45am (LY 1)

  • Flight 2: JFK → DTW (Detroit) – Fri, Feb 28; 7:30am - 9:30am (DL 5080)

3. Compete at FIM Ferndale - Feb 28-Mar 2

  • Flight 3: DTW → YYZ (Toronto) – Sun, Mar 2; 8:35pm - 9:48pm (AC 8776)

  • Flight 4: YYZ → LHR (London) – Sun, Mar 2; 11:40pm - Mon, Mar 3; 11:50am (AC 858)

  • Flight 5: LHR → IST (İstanbul) – Mon, Mar 3; 4:35pm - 11:25pm (TK 1986)

4. Compete at İstanbul Regional - Mar 4-6

  • Flight 6: IST → ATH (Athens) – Fri, Mar 7; 11:35am - 12:00pm (A3 991)

  • Flight 7: ATH → TLV – Fri, Mar 7; 5:20pm - 7:20pm (A3 924)

5. Compete at ISR #3 - Mar 9-10

6. Compete at ISR #4 - Mar 11-12

  • Flight 8: TLV → JFK – Thu, Mar 13; 12:05am - 6:05am (LY 3)

  • Flight 9: JFK → SAT (San Antonio) – Thu, Mar 13; 8:05am - 11:40am (DL 1166)

7. Compete at FIT San Antonio - Mar 13-15

  • Drive 2hrs to Victoria, TX (arrive around 7-8pm)

8. Compete at FIT Victoria - Mar 15-17

  • Drive 2hrs to Houston (this is the toughest part of the entire schedule - the event needs to be running punctual to catch this flight)

  • Flight 10: IAH (Houston) → DTW – Mon, Mar 17; 8:46pm - Tue, Mar 18; 12:34am (NK 384)

  • Drive 4hrs to Toronto; load in to Humber before practice matches

9. Compete at ONT Humber - Mar 17-19

10. Compete at ONT Waterloo - Mar 20-22

  • Flight 11: YYZ → JFK – Mon, Mar 24; 11:10am - 1:03pm (DL 5098)

  • Flight 12: JFK → TLV – Mon, Mar 24; 3:35pm - Tue, Mar 25; 8:10am (DL 234)

11. Compete at ISR DCMP - Mar 26-27

  • Flight 13: TLV → EWR (Newark) – Fri, Mar 28; 1:00am - 7:00am (LY 27)

  • Flight 14: EWR → DTW – Fri, Mar 28; 9:40am - 11:44am (DL 2566)

  • Drive 2hrs to Kentwood

12. Compete at FIM Kentwood - Mar 28-30

13. Compete at FIM DCMP - Apr 3-5

Finally, unless your robot and/or students are no longer in one piece, or you did your best California imitation and didn’t qualify…

14. Compete at Champs - Apr 16-19

This schedule includes 10 District Events, 2 DCMPs, 1 Regional (hi @AlexBurchard), and 1 CMP. There’s also the potential for 2 more competitions - FIMstein and Einstein, meaning there is a theoretical max of 16 events (one more than last year!)

Qual Matches: 12*12 (12 matches/district event or dcmp) + 9 (İstanbul) + 10 (CMP) = 163 qual matches

Maximum Playoff Matches (no overtime): 8 per competition + FIMstein (max 6) + Einstein (8) = 126 playoff matches

Total Matches: anywhere between 163 and 289

@359 @1622 good luck!

Rough map of the route (not a big variety of locations!)

43 Likes
2

Sounds like 1622’s schedule, bonkers.

20 Likes
3

Someone has waaaayyy too much time on their hands… :smiley:

4 Likes
4

You mixed some of your event years. Troy only has one event this year (2025), week 4! You have a week 5 Troy from 2024 in there. That’s the only one I double checked though, because it was an obvious one for me in FiM.

5

Good catch, I meant to use Kentwood but it slipped through the cracks :slight_smile:

6

Someone is waaaayyy too far behind on college apps now :smiley:

6 Likes
7

Honestly with this schedule even if you have an amazing robot you’re unlikely to qualify, unless you do it through your one regional. There’s no way you have a working robot come DCMPs.

8

You didn’t account for any ties in finals. Could theoretically be an infinite number of Overtimes :rofl:

5 Likes
9

.

10

If you don’t qualify for champs, you’ll at least qualify for bankruptcy.

21 Likes
11

Oop didn’t see that part. My bad.

12

This looks like something 118 would do, just replace FIM DCMP with FIT, then they would do it.
They competed every week in 2024, and they have 2 robots. They can do this without a problem lol

4 Likes
13

While the registration cost (~$23,000) is eye watering, that gets the cost down to $78/match! Great deal!

Yes, the 2 hour drive is definitely the most difficult thing proposed here.

Here’s how I suspect the students will be:

11 Likes
14

This is just Koko Ed’s volunteer schedule, innit?

14 Likes
15

Ed’s sane, at least mostly.

As opposed to this schedule.

1 Like
16

We actually competed in 92 official matches in 2024, which I think was second-most only to 118, and by a healthy margin (though still way behind 118). Given the total of what’s possible, but the insanity (and improbability) of that schedule, I think the number of matches we had with a much more normal schedule is actually quite a surprisingly total of the “theoretical” max.

Key reasons we had so many matches were playing an out-of-district event with only 25 teams (16 qual matches), and consistently losing at least one match but making it to the finals anyway – I’d be happy to get as far without the extra matches (and associated lower bracket stress) next year! :slight_smile:

7 Likes
17

Almost! I got curious and went looking for the stats and matches played stat is apparently tracked in TBA. 2024 Insights - The Blue Alliance
For 2024 the top 3 were:
118 - 114
1622 - 97
9496 - 92

6 Likes
18

I would toss 118 in that mix to.

Also, what are the rules on one team competing at two events with two robots.

2 Likes
19

I would like to at least acknowledge the very close 4th place, 7174 Charger Robotics who came out with 91 matches by the end of the season.

Comparing 7174 and 9496 for their matches, 7174 competed at 1 more event than 9496, but didn’t make it as far in playoffs at each of their events, and didn’t get picked at Worlds. However, 7174 didn’t need to go out of its district to reach its number (not counting Worlds, but all in top 4 did that so…)

3 Likes
20

I want to say that I’ve heard that HQ won’t even let you register for 2 events that happen simultaneously.

With that said, if you happened to have a B team with a second number, and people that could support it…