FTC Qualifying Tournaments 2015-2016

Schedule of Qualifying Tournaments in Illinois

FTC events pack a lot of activities into one day. The main events for a typical tournament are as follows:  (Note - below is a description of Qualifying Competitions, the League Championship and the State Championship. League Meets have an abbreviated schedule.)

1. Team Check-in
2. Robot Hardware and Software Inspection
3. Judges’ Interviews
4. Drivers’ Meeting
5. Practice Matches
6. Opening Ceremony
7. Qualification Matches
8. Alliance Selection
9. Elimination Matches
10. Awards and Closing Ceremony

Team Check-In
As a team arrives at the venue, the Coach or other adult mentor should register the team with the tournament officials. During check-in, the Coach will receive a packet of information for the team that may include drive team badges, a judging schedule, a map of the facilities and pits, and other information that is very important to the teams. The Coach should review all the material to make sure the packet is complete. At this time, the team should set up their Pit area and get familiar with the venue, including where the practice and playing fields are and where judging takes place, and review the schedule of events for the day.

Robot Hardware and Software Inspection
FTC robots are required to pass hardware and software inspections before being cleared to compete. These inspections ensure that all FTC robot rules and regulations are met. A copy of the official FTC “RobotInspection Sheet” is located in Appendices 1 and 2. The “Robot Inspection Sheet” must be used by teams as a guide to pre-inspect their robot. A Bill of Materials (BOM) of non-TETRIX, non-MATRIX, or non-LEGOparts must be presented at Hardware Inspection.

Judges’ Interviews
At FIRST Tech Challenge events, there are generally three parts to the judging process: 1) interview with judges; 2) evaluation of performance during the tournament; and 3) evaluation of the Engineering Notebook. Each team will have a ten to fifteen minute “fact finding” interview with a panel of two or three judges.
The Judges’ Interviews generally take place before any qualificationmatches so that the entire team may be interviewed. When teams arrive at the event, the interview schedule should be included in the registrationmaterials. Make sure you know when your team will be interviewed and arrive to the interview room early. Please have at least two student team representatives and the robot available; the entire team is encouraged to participate. Mentors (no more than two) are welcome to observe the Judges’ Interview at most events, but should not participate.

Drivers’ Meeting
The Drivers’ Meeting takes place prior to the start of qualification rounds and is a time when the drive team meets with the referees. During this time, the head referee gives a brief overview of what is expected of teams and any venue specific information, such as queuing paths, and explains any signals and commands referees will give during matches.

Practice Time
At the event, practice field time is offered in the morning until the drivers’ meeting begins. Every effort will be made to equalize practice time for all teams, but it may also be conducted on a first-come, first-served basis. If practice matches are run, these matches may be scored, but the scores do not affect team ranking.

Opening Ceremony
The Opening Ceremony is the official kickoff of the event’s activities for the teams, the fans, and the public. During the Opening Ceremony, a tournament official or the emcee will welcome the teams and the public, introduce dignitaries and other special guests, and introduce the judges and the referees. Then the game will be described (usually with a video) and the national anthems of all the teams’ countries will be played. Immediately after, the Qualification Matchestake place.
If your team is in any ofthe first four matches on the day of your event, volunteers will ask you to line up before the opening ceremonies. Please, make sure your team is on time in case you have an early match.

Qualification Matches
Teams are randomly assigned to qualifying matches and alliances. The qualifying match schedule is available prior to opening ceremonies on the day of the event. This schedule indicates alliance partners and match pairings. It also indicatesthe alliance’s color (red or blue) and the position in the alliance station (1 or 2) for the drive team. These matches start immediately after the Opening Ceremonies in accordance with the qualification match schedule. The queue volunteer crew works together throughout the day to line up teams for the matches and maintain the schedule. It is very important to pay attention to the match schedule and listen for announcements throughout the day. You need to know when you will compete, find out the number of the ending match before lunch, and find out which match is the last match of the tournament day.
All teams are ranked based on the same number of qualifying matches. In some cases, a team is asked to play a surrogate match which does not count towards theirstandings during the event. This additional match is denoted on the match schedule or announced to the teams prior to the start of the qualifying matches.
At the conclusion of each match, Qualifying Points (QP) and Ranking Points (RP) are awarded:

• Teams receive Qualifying Points based on the following:
• Winning teams of a qualifying match each receive two (2) QP.
• Losing teams of a qualifying match receive zero (0) QP.
• If a qualifying match ends in a tie, all four teams receive one (1) QP.
• If a team is disqualified, they receive zero (0) QP.
• Points (RP) are awarded based on the following:
• The number of ranking points assigned for each match is that of the losing alliance’s score. Both Alliancesreceive the pre-penalized score of the losing alliance astheir RP. 
• In the event of a tie, both alliances receive the same RP (equal to the tie score).
• If a team is disqualified, they receive zero (0) RP.
• If both teams on an alliance are disqualified, the teams on the winning alliance are awarded their own score as their RP for that match.

At the conclusion of all Qualification Matches, the teams are ranked from first through last on the basis of their total Qualifying Points (QPs). If multiple teams have the same QP total, then teams are ranked on the basis of their total Ranking Points (RPs). If multiple teams have the same RP total as well, then teams are ranked on the basis of their highest match score. If still tied, the next highest match score is used until the tie is broken. In the unlikely event that there is still a tie based on identical match scores, then the teams are ranked by a random electronic draw

Alliance Selection
The number of teams in the Elimination Matches is based on the number of teams in the tournament. If there are 21 or more teams in the tournament, the Elimination Matches consist of alliances of 3 teams each. If there are 20 teams or less, then the alliances consist of 2 teams each. There are a total of four (4) alliances that will compete in the Elimination Bracket.
The alliance selection process consists of a number of rounds of selections, such that all alliance captains form elimination match alliances consisting of the requisite number of teams. These alliances participate in a ladder-type tournament to determine the event’s Winning Alliance. The alliance selection process is as follows:

• Each team chooses one student to act as the team’s representative. These representatives will proceed to the competition area at the designated time to represent their teams in the alliance selection. It is recommended that the representative also bring their robot to the competition area as teams making selections may not know team names or numbers, but do know what the robots look like.
• In order of tournament ranking, the student representative of the highest ranked team not already in an alliance is asked to step forward as the Alliance Captain to invite another available team to join their alliance.
• A team is available if it is not already part of an alliance, or has not already declined an alliance invitation. If the team accepts, it is moved into that alliance. If a team declines, it CANNOT be invited into another alliance, but it isstill available to select their own alliance if the opportunity arises. If a team declines, the alliance captain from the inviting team must then extend an invitation to another team.
• The process continues until all alliance captains have been designated and chosen one alliance partner.
• If there are more than 20 teams, the same method is used for each alliance captain’s second choice (the third member of the alliance) from highest seed to lowest seed ( i.e. 1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 4). Any teams remaining after the lowest seeded captain makes their choice do not compete in the Elimination Matches.

Elimination Matches
The Elimination Matches are very exciting. This is when the alliances determine who isthe Champion of the event. The matches are played in a seeded format where the top seed goes up against the 4^th seed, and the number 2 seed goes up against the 3^rd seed.
In the elimination matches, teams do not get qualifying points; they get a win, loss or tie. Within each bracket of the elimination, matches are played to determine which alliance advances. The advancing alliance is the first one to win two matches. Any tied matches are replayed until one alliance has two wins and advances
During the elimination matches, two teams from an alliance compete on the playing field. If the alliance has three teams, the team that sits out the first match in an elimination series must play in the second match, with no exceptions. If the alliances play more than two matches in any round, any combination of two alliance robots may be used. The Captain of the Alliance is not required to participate in every match. No special accommodations are made for robots that fail during the Semi Final and Final Rounds. Teams should consider the robustness of the robots when picking alliance partners

Awards and Closing Ceremony
The Awards and Closing Ceremony celebrates the accomplishments of the teams during the season and how they all performed during the event. The ceremony begins as soon as the last match is played, however some awards may be given out earlier in the event day. During the ceremony, teams are recognized for their accomplishments as the awards are handed out. The Winning Alliance teams and the Finalist Alliance teams are also recognized. Finally, the Inspire Award winner is announced.