Schedule

The Schedule step lays out your event day as a series of blocks. Match blocks reserve time for practice, qualification, or elimination matches. Other blocks mark ceremonies, alliance selection, lunch, and anything else you want on the timeline. When you later click Create Matches on the Creating Matches step, Competition Control fills each practice and qualification block with as many matches as its cycle time allows.

Open the step from Event Setup. It needs at least one team on the Teams step, because every estimate here depends on the team count. The schedule is shown two ways: a list of blocks on the left, and a calendar on the right that draws every block on the days it covers. For a league, the step shows and saves blocks for the Active Session chosen on the League step only. Blocks in other sessions are kept but hidden.

[Screenshot: The Schedule step in Simple mode with a practice block, a qualification block, and a lunch block]

A few terms are used throughout this step:

• Cycle time: the time from the start of one match to the start of the next, including the match itself and the field reset. The number of matches that fit in a block is the block's length divided by its cycle time, rounded down.
• Round: one match for every team. With 4 teams per match and 30 teams, a round is 8 matches.
• Matches per team: how many matches each team plays in a block, which is the matches in the block divided by the matches in one round.

Simple and Advanced Modes

The Schedule Mode switch at the top of the step offers Simple and Advanced. The switch changes what you see, not what is saved, and it resets to Simple when you reopen the step.

• Simple: hides cycle times when you add a block. After you add your match blocks, you say how many matches per team you want for each round type and Competition Control works out the cycle time for you.
• Advanced: shows the Match Cycle Time boxes in every block dialog so you can set cycle times by hand.

Simple mode suits most events. Switch to Advanced when you need an exact cycle time, for example one you have used successfully before.

Adding a Match Block

1. Click Add Match Block.
2. Set Start Time and End Time. The new block starts where your last block ends (or at the current time if this is the first block) and lasts one hour. The start must be before the end.
3. Choose the Match Type: Practice, Qualification, or Elimination Matches. Only one elimination block is allowed, so Elimination Matches disappears from the list once you have one.
4. In Advanced mode, or for an elimination block, set Match Cycle Time in minutes and seconds. The default is 5 minutes, and the value must be greater than zero.
5. Read the notice at the bottom of the dialog. For practice and qualification blocks in Advanced mode it shows Matches Per Team for this block. For an elimination block it shows how many matches fit, or warns that the block is too short for the bracket.
6. Click Save.

Match blocks cannot overlap other match blocks. If they do, the dialog shows This block overlaps with the followed by the other block's type and start time, and the block is not saved. Other blocks, such as lunch, may overlap anything.

Adding Another Kind of Block

1. Click Add Other Block.
2. Choose the Block Type: Ceremony, Alliance Selection, or Other.
3. For Ceremony and Other, type a Title such as "Opening Ceremony" or "Lunch". The Title box is disabled for Alliance Selection, which is titled automatically.
4. Set Start Time and End Time.
5. Click Save. The button stays disabled until the title is filled in (where required) and the start time is before the end time.

The Alliance Selection block and the elimination block reserve time on the calendar but do not create anything by themselves. Alliances and elimination matches are created on the Alliance selection and Eliminations pages.

Setting Cycle Times in Simple Mode

Once you have at least one practice or qualification block, a section appears below the block buttons with one row per round type.

1. In Practice Matches Per Team or Qualification Matches Per Team, use the stepper to choose how many matches each team should play, from 0 to 30.
2. Watch the Cycle Time beside it. This is the longest cycle time that still fits the requested matches into all the blocks of that type in the active session.
3. If a warning starting Not enough time appears, the cycle time has dropped below the length of one match for your program. Lengthen the blocks or lower the matches per team.
4. Click Apply Cycle Time. The cycle time is written to every block of that round type in the active session.

The matches per team you choose is remembered on this device only, so you can come back and adjust it. If you have an elimination block, Simple mode sets its cycle time automatically by dividing the block length by the number of bracket matches expected, and a line reading Elimination bracket, followed by the match count and cycle time shows the result.

The shortest usable cycle time is the length of one match for your program: 90 seconds for Aerial Drone Competition, 60 seconds for Engage, and 120 seconds for Aerial Drone Competition Pro, Achieve, and Inspire. In practice you need more than this for field reset and team changeover. Five minutes is a common starting point, and more Alliance fields on the Fields step let you run a shorter cycle time.

Editing or Removing a Block

To edit a block, click the pencil button on it, change the fields, and click Save. To remove a block, click the trash button. The block is removed immediately with no confirmation.

Reading the Summary

Three numbers sit above the block list: Registered Teams (how many teams are on the Teams step), Practice Rounds (how many rounds of practice matches your practice blocks hold at their current cycle times), and Qualification Rounds (the same for qualification blocks). When matches are created, each round type is rounded down to whole rounds, so a value below 1.00 means those blocks will be skipped, and a warning titled Insufficient Time for that round type says so.

In Advanced mode, each practice and qualification block in the list also shows its own matches per team in parentheses. In Simple mode this appears only after you apply a cycle time.

Elimination blocks show an estimate such as About 7 matches for 8 alliances, or a range when the number of wins to advance makes the count uncertain. The estimate is based on your team count, your program's alliance rules, and the Wins to Advance settings on the Creating Matches step, so decide those settings before you size the block. If the block is too short, the block dialog warns Only time for a number of matches but the bracket needs more.

Remarks

Build the whole day, including ceremonies and lunch, before you set cycle times. Other blocks do not affect the calculations, but seeing them on the calendar helps you spot gaps. Splitting qualification matches into two blocks around lunch works well, because Simple mode treats all blocks of the same type together when it calculates the cycle time.

Give the elimination block more time than the estimate. Ties and replays add matches, and the notice in the block dialog reminds you to allow for this.

The estimates count every registered team, not only those marked present. If many teams are absent on the day, each present team plays more matches than the estimate, and matches that are not needed are dropped when teams are assigned.