Skip to main content

FTC World Championships #2 - How the Game Works

I'm waiting on some videos to post more about the FTC World Championships and our robot, but in the meantime you can see a video our team put together of our experience at the competition here.

I also thought I'd post a description of this year's game so that readers can understand what's going on in the videos. You can click here to see an animation from FIRST that explains how the game works.

At a tournament, teams first participate in several qualifying matches. During each qualifying match, two randomly selected teams ally with each other against two other randomly selected teams. The two winning teams gain 2 qualifying points, while the two losing teams don't gain any. After the qualifying rounds, the team with the most qualifying points is ranked #1, and so on. But what happens if multiple teams have the same number of qualifying points? In this case, a somewhat-confusing tiebreaker is used. After each qualifying match, the four participating teams recieve the score of the losing alliance as ranking points. So if one alliance scored 130 points in a match and the other scored 95 points, all four teams in the match would recieve 95 ranking points, the score of the losing alliance. Then, if two teams have the same number of qualifying points, the team with the most ranking points takes precedence. For example, in Atlanta, Power Surge won all six of our qualifying matches, thus gaining the maximum number of qualifying points. However, there were three other teams who also won all their qualifying matches. But since we had the most ranking points, we were still ranked #1.

After the qualifying matches are over, a certain number of the top teams advance to the elimination rounds, where the winners are determined. At the World Championships this year, the top four teams in each division advanced. Each of these teams (called the alliance captains) pick two alliance partners to form a permanent alliance in the elimination rounds. The #1-ranked team picks an alliance partner first, then the #2-ranked team, and so on. Then they start over, with the #1-ranked team picking their second alliance partner and so on until there are four alliances composed of three teams each: the alliance captain and two teams they selected.

These alliances then compete with each other in a series of semifinals and finals. In each elimination match, alliances send two of their three teams to compete. In the semifinals, the #1-ranked team's alliance goes up against the #4-ranked team's alliance, and the #2-ranked team's alliance goes against the #3-ranked team's alliance. The two alliances which win at least 2/3 matches against their opponents advance to the finals, where they compete against each other. The alliance which wins 2/3 matches in the finals is the winner. At the World Championships, there were two divisions this year, each of which had their own elimination matches. So after the elimination rounds were completed in each division, the two winners of the divisions went up against each other for the overall finals.

Wow, long post... it's pretty simple, isn't it? :-)

-Jonathan

Popular posts from this blog

Celebrating MINDSTORMS with a Remix - Part 3

The ROBOTMAK3RS continued their celebration of the 25th Anniversary of MINDSTORMS through these Fall and Winter remix projects. Each ROBOTMAK3R was tasked with selecting one LEGO set of their choice and combining it with a MINDSTORMS set. Below are the five amazing models they came up with. Braill3 by Jerry Nicholls Braill3 is an EV3-based LEGO Braille bricks reader. This robot uses its fingertip, made from three touch switches, to read messages written using the LEGO Braille bricks and will speak out what it detected. If it sees a simple maths problem it will attempt to solve it and give the answer as well. To learn more about the process of creating this machine, read Jerry's blog . Braill3 can be viewed here . Set Review: The Braille Bricks set is well thought out. The ratios of the letters is suitable for general use and the addition of some punctuation and arithmetic operators is excellent. There is a card showing what bricks there are and their quantities, but no form of sort

Celebrating MINDSTORMS with a Remix - Part 2

The ROBOTMAK3RS continued their celebration of the 25th Anniversary of MINDSTORMS through these summer and fall remix projects. Each ROBOTMAK3R was tasked with selecting one LEGO set of their choice and combining it with a MINDSTORMS set. Below are the five amazing models they came up with. Remote controlled material handle r by Jozua van Ravenhorst (aka Mr Jo) This remix combines the LEGO Technic Material Handler (42144) with MINDSTORMS EV3 (31313) It uses the power of pneumatic cylinders to move objects around. By using a bluetooth remote control, very precise movements can be made with this model. Touch sensors in the base chassis prevent the turret twisting the cables that go through the turntable to much. The program has several protections to prevent over pressurizing the system for each of the 3 individual pumps and valves that control the 2 booms and claws. The real version of this machine is mostly used in waste material sites to bring the material to machines that sort and

Celebrating 25 Years of MINDSTORMS

In celebration of the 25th Anniversary of MINDSTORMS, we take a trip through history. Please also visit ROBOTMAK3RS Community every week as we highlight different projects all through 2023 in celebration of the anniversary. Some of the early history is based on the content shared by  Coder Shah  in our  MINDSTORMS EV3 Community Group . Some of the text and links may have been edited from his original posts for consistency and clarity.  1984 - Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen watched a TV program called "Talking Turtle," where MIT professor Seymour Papert demonstrated how children could control robot "turtles" using LOGO, a programming language he developed. 1988 - The collaboration between MIT and LEGO resulted in LEGO TC Logo in 1988, which allowed students to control LEGO models using computer commands. The video shows Papert demonstrating TC Logo. 1990 - LEGO TC Logo was hampered since the robots you built had to be tethered to a personal computer. LEGO and MIT