Sack Attack Event Metrics - Turn time

[Foster]

I’m looking for information from people that have run events.

I want to know your average match “turn time”. Turn time is the elapsed time from the time the referee goes "3-2-1 GO, through auto mode, through driver mode, counting sacks, removal of the robots, resetting the field, loading the next batch of robots, getting them positioned to start, making sure everyone is plugged in, having the referee go “blue alliance are you ready”, “red alliance are you ready”, and is about to say “3-2-1 GO”. In other words the total time from match start to the next match start.

I’d like to know the time, how many people scored / counted.

I have a 48 team event in a few weeks and I want to maximize the number of plays, but I have a hard stop at 2PM to run eliminations and must be giving awards out at 4PM.

Turn time feeds into the number of fields that I will run (3 or 4) for the event.

I’m also interested in hearing ideas for counting sacks and resetting the field. I’m thinking since this is the first outing for many teams, there won’t be high scores, but you never know.

Thanks!

[bobsalive]

Someone else from our team was going to reply awhile ago, but here is our “best estimation”:

A standard Auckland region scrimmage has roughly 20-25 teams involved. We run two fields (+ a skills/practice field which is unstaffed unless someone wants to do a skills run). We usually have at least 10 volunteers at our events. In terms of those who are focused on the field at any one time:

1x Commentator
1x Referee
1x Scorer (sometimes 2 scorers for redundancy, but only if we have spare volunteers) - they can also double as extra eyes for the referee
2x Field Resetters (sometimes 3 and up to 4, but only if we have spares)
1x TM operator
1x Field Queuer

Other volunteers are involved with assisting teams in the pits, watching the matches to act as additional eyes for the referees, occasionally running skills if a team wants to do a run officially, and organising food/drinks.

The same individuals are able to operate both fields - commentator and referee work on the field that is currently being played on, the scorer and field resetters work on the field that has just finished. Field Queuer ensures that teams are ready and on the field by the time the commentator and referee are ready.

Given that we are operating two fields, the average turn time would be about three minutes. That is usually due to having to wait for teams to set up their robots correctly, wait for VEXNet to connect, wait for teams who haven’t arrived yet, etc. The fields are almost always ready, scored and reset within two minutes, it’s waiting for the teams which causes delays. We attempt to run our competitions as efficiently as possible, but would rather wait for a team to arrive than “No Show” them from the match.

At the Asia-Pacific competition in December, Kiwibots will be operating four fields. It is currently the intention that there will be enough volunteers to allow the turn time to be as close to two minutes as possible - match ends, commentator and referee move to the next field (where robots are already set up), scorer and field resetters score previous field.

In terms of counting sacks, the only trick that we have is for the troughs. Our scorers usually move all the sacks to one side, and count them as they move them to the other side (which ensures that no sacks are missed). Autonomous scoring is usually done by a very quick visual assessment, most autonomous periods are one-sided enough that there is no doubt which team wins the bonus. Often that scoring is done by the referee, and when the scorer has finished the previous field, when they come to the current field the referee just says “red/blue won the autonomous”.

To save running time for scorers, our scorers use a custom-written Android app to type the scores in. Those scores can then be sent over a local wi-fi network to the Tournament Manager operator’s computer. As of right now, we can’t get the software to enter the scores into TM automatically (we can’t get access to it), but a volunteer has a written a macro that automatically copies the scores over. The main benefit is it stops the scorers having to physically run a piece of paper to the TM operator and they can move to the next field.

[Rick_TYler]

Foster – a trick I use is to over-schedule the event by one match. In other words, if I was running your event, I would schedule a little loose (like 3:30 or 3:45 match time) and do a schedule through 2:30. If this ended up giving me 7 matches per team, I would announce at the driver’s meeting, “we have generated a schedule with gives all teams seven matches, but we are finishing at 2pm no matter what. It is possible that the tournament will only go six matches per team, but that’s up to you – if you get your robots on and off the field rapidly you get an extra match. Let’s go!” Tournament Manager allows you to end a tournament before the scheduled last match, and will automatically eliminate “extra matches.” In other words, if you have 20% of the teams that have played a 7th match before you have to end the day, you can have TM close qualifying after six matches each and then go into alliance selection. Check under Tools-Options-Qual. Matches for how to end a tournament early. (Foster may already know how to do this, but it’s a good tip for any Tournament Director trying to maximize matches.)

[hwilson]

@bobsalive

Given that we are operating two fields, the average turn time would be about three minutes. That is usually due to having to wait for teams to set up their robots correctly, wait for VEXNet to connect, wait for teams who haven’t arrived yet, etc. The fields are almost always ready, scored and reset within two minutes, it’s waiting for the teams which causes delays. We attempt to run our competitions as efficiently as possible, but would rather wait for a team to arrive than “No Show” them from the match.

It’s about 4 minutes for all the Auckland events (just checked databases) but as Andrew says, we want all the teams to compete

At the Asia-Pacific competition in December, Kiwibots will be operating four fields. It is currently the intention that there will be enough volunteers to allow the turn time to be as close to two minutes as possible - match ends, commentator and referee move to the next field (where robots are already set up), scorer and field resetters score previous field.

We will be going straight on 2 minutes for this competition to ensure all of the matches can be run easily

@bobsalive

To save running time for scorers, our scorers use a custom-written Android app to type the scores in. Those scores can then be sent over a local wi-fi network to the Tournament Manager operator’s computer. As of right now, we can’t get the software to enter the scores into TM automatically (we can’t get access to it), but a volunteer has a written a macro that automatically copies the scores over. The main benefit is it stops the scorers having to physically run a piece of paper to the TM operator and they can move to the next field.

I’m an the said volunteer here - the application uses an Android application (VEX Virtual Scorecard - available on the Play Store) and my custom server that saves and enters all the matches directly into Tournament Manager when requested (again can’t automatically enter results into the database ), if anybody is interested just PM me and I can give you a copy of the server in it’s current stage. Planning on allowing match schedules and team information to be retrieved from the database to the clients so commentators have ease of access to information