FRC Queuing: Back-To-Back Match Finder

Description

This program can be used to find and mark back-to-back matches in the qualification match schedule for a specific FRC event.

For queuing, it's important to track teams that have back-to-back matches to keep the match flow running smoothly, and to prevent teams from leaving the field if they are needed back in the match queue. Most events will keep at least 2 matches queued behind the match currently playing, and some will keep 3 matches if the distance to the pits is too far. An example of a qualification schedule is shown below:

Match	Time	Blue 1	Blue 2	Blue 3	Red 1	Red 2	Red 3
1	Thu 11:00	2523	1519	2370	4048	1100	2262
2	Thu 11:07	2342	1277	501	3466	3780	126
3	Thu 11:14	5813	4987	5969	1350	3719	663
4	Thu 11:21	1100	190	3236	1740	6367	4041

In this schedule, team 1100 is in match 1 and match 4. In this case, when match 1 ends, match 4 will be brought up into queue, and so team 1100 will be queued again. We want to prevent them from leaving the field because they are needed right away in queue.

We also want to note that team 1100 has to switch alliance colors between matches 1 and 4 (Red to Blue). This is something we would want to notify them about, in case they need to switch bumpers.

This program pulls the match schedule from The Blue Alliance and generates an updated schedule that notes all the information to make queuing easier and eliminate the manual work of marking each back-to-back match.

Build

This program requires:

• Python 2.7
• A Read API key for The Blue Alliance
• An internet connection

Execution

API Key

To get access to The Blue Alliance, you will need to generate a Read API key. The documentation to do so is here. With the Read API key, save it to a file named key.json with the following contents:

{
    "key": "<your Read API key>"
}

This file will get loaded and the key will be used to retrieve the match schedule from The Blue Alliance.

Arguments

To generate the schedule, run the program as follows:

python main.py -i <event ID> -o <output file> -m <match count>

The arguments are:

• event ID : The Event Model key from The Blue Alliance, in the form of yyyy[EVENT_CODE]. For example, 2017mawor for the 2017 WPI District event.
• output file : The file path to write the generated schedule, as a TSV file.
• match count : The number of matches to consider for "back-to-back". This is commonly 4 matches for most events.

You can run python main.py -h for further help.

Output

An example of the output is shown below:

Match	Time	Blue 1	Blue 2	Blue 3	Red 1	Red 2	Red 3
1	Thu 11:00	2523	1519	2370	4048	1100 (M4:B1:+3)	2262
2	Thu 11:07	2342	1277	501	3466	3780	126
3	Thu 11:14	5813	4987	5969	1350	3719	663
4	Thu 11:21	1100 *	190	3236	1740	6367	4041
...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...
BREAK	BREAK	BREAK	BREAK	BREAK	BREAK	BREAK	BREAK
...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...
80	Fri 12:17	6367 (L)	3623 (L)	6723 (L)	5813 (L)	1991 (L)	1350 (L)

In this output, we have marked team 1100 in matches 1 and 4 and all the teams in match 80 with additional information. The format of this information is as follows:

<team number> <other specifier> (<information type indicator><match number>:<next alliance>:<matches out>)

• team number : The FRC team number.
• other specifier : A specifier indicating the type of record for this match row. This can be BREAK, which indicates that this match row is a break in the schedule, either for lunch, day break, or some other intermission. If this is specified, no other additional information will be provided.
• information type indicator : The indicators that can be here are as follows:
  • M indicates additional match information for a team's next back-to-back match. match number, next alliance, and matches out will appear in the additional information.
  • L indicates that this match is the last one for the specified team. This is useful for notifying teams when to go to inspection before elimination rounds and getting alliance selection representatives.
  • * indicates that this team is being queued again from a previous back to back match. This is useful for queuers to know if field queuers or robot pit queuers need to find this team.
• match number : The match number for the associated back-to-back match.
• next alliance : The next alliance color (B or R) and driver station position (1, 2, 3) for the associated back-to-back match.
• matches out : The number of matches from this current match to the associated back-to-back match.

Note: The Time of each match is retrieved based on your timezone, not the event's timezone.