"Emergency" Match Schedules

VEX Robotics Competition Discussion VRC
#1

I created the attached match schedules so that anyone wanting to have a quick scrimmage (without using IFI’s Tournament Manager) could easily pick up a good-enough match schedule from here.

The algorithm that computed the schedules is not perfect. It occasionally has a team face an opponent more often than is necessary; but with that said, it does a pretty good job, and the results can certainly be used in a pinch.

The software that produces these is the result of a collaboration between ManicMechanic and me a couple of summers ago.

There are 45 files. Each file contains a schedule for N teams for 20 matches per team. N varies from 6 to 50 teams. I know that 20 matches for 50 teams is absurd, but computer time and file space are cheap and I was too lazy to adjust the number of matches scheduled as the number of team was raised. :slight_smile:

When I use the files, I go down to the very bottom where the match schedule is written as rows of comma separated values (csv). Cut out those rows (along with the header rows immediately above and below the match info) and paste them into a new file with a filetype of “csv”. You can then easily use the data in Excel. Excel recognizes csv-formatted data.

Some of the information in the files summarizes teams’ matches, allies and opponents. Handing that out to the teams would help most teams.

Some of the info at the top of the files is pretty boring if you aren’t developing the algorithm. You won’t insult me if you delete it from your copy of the files. :slight_smile:

When assigning real teams to the team numbers in the schedules, scramble the order of the real teams’ entries (Otherwise, if Team X brings four robots to a tournament, and you give them the first four slots in the match schedule’s list of teams, those four will face each other in the first 2 vs 2 match).

Enjoy,
Blake
PS: If someone wants to supply a collection of better schedules (with zero unnecessary duplicate opponents), I welcome them to replace these with better ones. Fixing the final few glitches in the algorithm is on my list of things to do, but…
N Teams x 20 Matches Each.zip (568 KB)

#2

Blake,

Great job! I’d forgotten that you had generated mass numbers of match-ups and could see this coming in very handy at our next event.

When I clipped the rows, I could only get the data separated into 3 columns (rather than the desired 4, for the 4 teams in each match), because there were 2 commas in each row. I was wondering if I could make a request for a not-so tiny modification. Would it be possible to format the match rows as follows:

Match 1, Qual between Red Alliance # 0, Team 0, Team 1, and Blue Alliance # 21, Team 2, Team 3

The extra commas allows each of the 4 teams to be listed in its own column and potentially allows the extra information to be trimmed out. Typically, I would print boxes something like:

Match 1 - Team 0 - Team 1 - Team 2 - Team 3

where the dashes represent the dividing lines of a table. Having the extra commas would allow easy separation of the data to the desired format.

Sorry to yet again dump all the extra work on you.

#3

I think I can satisfy this request pretty quickly and easily.

I don’t think you looked far enough down the existing files. The lines you want to cut out and store in a text file with a suffix of “csv” should look like these (and are the very last lines of the files).:

Match, Red Alliance, Blue Alliance, Red Team1, Red Team2, Blue Team1, Blue Team2
  1,   0,  29,  0,  1,  2,  3
  2,  54,  75,  4,  5,  6,  7
  3,  92, 105,  8,  9, 10, 11
  4, 114, 119, 12, 13, 14, 15
  5,   1,  55,  0,  2,  4,  6
  6,  16,  66,  1,  3,  5,  7
  7,  93, 115,  8, 10, 12, 14
...
 77,   5, 106,  0,  6, 10, 12
 78,  20, 111,  1,  7, 11, 13
 79,  30,  97,  2,  4,  8, 14
 80,  43, 104,  3,  5,  9, 15
Match, RedA, BlueA, Red1, Red2, Blue1, Blue2

Let me know if this doesn’t solve the problem.

Blake

#4

Oops! My bad. I saw the other info and assumed that was all there was of that type.

#5