This summer, FIRST® Robotics Competition assembled a working group to explore ways to improve the playoff tournament timeout process. I am happy to share some updates on progress we have made so far.
In looking at the current timeout process, we first assessed areas for improvement and identified some things to improve with a new model:
- Avoid unbalanced matches in playoffs (i.e. 3 robots vs. 2 robots)
- A simpler process for all participants
- Provide more time to teams between playoff matches
- Improve the overall team experience (both for teams competing and teams watching)
To address these areas, the following changes will be incorporated for the 2023 season:
- More time for teams between playoff matches. Our goal is that each alliance will have at least fifteen minutes between each of their matches. Note that this does mean removing timeouts available to alliances, as all alliances are allotted more time.
- Backup robots are required to play in the first match after they are called and may not be called until after the alliance’s first match. After that, the alliance can choose to play any of the four teams now on their alliance.
- Alliances can choose which driver station each team is in for each match.
- Instead of immediate disablement for a robot being late, teams will receive a penalty for causing significant delays to the start of playoff matches before being disabled.
- Printed copies of the backup robots list and playoff bracket will be provided to the alliance captain prior to the start of the playoff matches.
- We are evaluating additional audience and team focused displays will help teams know exactly when their next playoff match will be and how the tournament is progressing.
The group also made a recommendation that implementing a double elimination tournament would achieve even greater improvements over the current system. The Double Elimination Tournament Overview has more detail about how this model would be implemented for FIRST Robotics Competition events. The page also shares additional advantages of this model with more detail on the other changes being implemented. Some details are still being finalized, including any potential changes to District points.
It’s important to note that changing from best-of-three to double elimination is tentative. While we would love to wave a magic wand and have this all finalized before the season, this is a large undertaking, and we had other projects on deck for our engineering team to focus on this fall (like the 2023 game). So, we are working closely with volunteer members of the community to help us execute this with the goal that we will feel confident in implementing this for the 2023 season. If we are not ready, we will make the other modifications listed above for the 2023 season.
We will update the community later this fall with confirmation of the playoff structure that will be used for the 2023 season. Please note that specific details in the overview document are subject to change. The 2023 FIRST Robotics Competition game manual will have the complete tournament ruleset.
We are excited to share that some offseason events, including Chezy Champs, are implementing a similar tournament structure as an opportunity to test the model. We plan to attend Chezy Champs to talk with teams about their experiences with the new model to see if we need to make any adjustments to our plan.
Finally, I want to give a big shout out and thank you to our working group who was mostly made up of volunteers. I also want to preemptively thank the volunteers who have agreed to help us with implementing this new playoff model. We have said it before, but I will say it again, FIRST® runs on volunteers, and we couldn’t do everything we do without all of you. Thank You!