Hello CD,
I was wondering where I would find the number of qualification matches that will be played by each team at 2017 events. Is this value to be found somewhere or will we need to wait until the event itself when match schedules come out?
Unfortunately, there is no set number of matches per team at regional events. You will not find out until the match schedule is released for the regional events you are attending. In general it’s six to eight per team, I think. That’s just what I’ve seen from other sources but I have never actually been to a regional.
In districts each team is guaranteed to play 12 qualification matches because we have fewer teams per event.
Six to eight is rather low. Some regionals do go as low as eight, but quite a few are between 9 and 11, I have seen a regional go up to 13. You are correct about districts running 12.
If I was going to make a guess, I would take the time allotted to qualification matches, divide it by the cycle time (past two years it has been around 7 minutes, it might be down to 6 this year) to get the number of possible matches. I would take the number of possible matches and multiply by 6 (6 teams per match) then divide by number of teams at the event. I would then round down to account for the slower cycles at the beginning of the event when the staff is learning the ropes and teams are working out the kinks and any other situations that might slow down the event. Then I would give some disclaimer about how it is only a guess.
I would actually give a “best guess” based on past experience with the event size. (not actual size below–but in that “class”)
Ventura: 40-team
Silicon Valley: 60-team.
40-team events run closer to 12 matches/team. If the cycle time is long, 11 matches. I want to say Ventura ran 12 last year.
60-team events would tend towards the 9/10 match mark.
One way to get a decent estimate is to look at last year’s data for event size and matches played, then see if the size is the same this year. 1-2 minutes different in cycle time between games might not add up to enough to make a difference.
Ohh, a question made for me!
It depends on the event schedule, the cycle time and number of teams.
Assuming a 7 minute cycle you can have a maximum of
8 matches per team if there are 62 - 69 teams
9 matches if there are 56 - 61 teams
10 matches 51 - 55 teams
11 matches 47 - 50 teams
Practically though, if the team count is on the high end of those ranges there isn’t a lot of slack to play with in the schedule and most FTAs will opt for one less match per team rather than an almost guaranteed late event.
The sequence on a match is prestart and on field setup and connect to FMS, MC’s announce teams, match play, ref validation, field reset and remove robots.
Cycle time is a combination of all of those things, some years field reset or the refs making their decision takes more or less time. This year, field reset is going to be longer than typical, but the ref time should be less.
Thank you very much for the detailed response! Excited to be playing at Ventura which should have 11 or 12 matches.