The RFORCE Index is an comprehensive performance metric created by RFORCE, which:
Collects raw data from Robot Events API’s (robotevents.com)
Extracts insights and synthesizes it using the RFORCE Index Formula
Presents it in the context of RFORCE data (Rankings, Profiles, etc.)
This process produces a team’s RFORCE, measured in points.
The RFORCE Index’s objectives are:
To measure a team’s complete and true performance impact by capturing all possible and available contributions within their respective competition (awards, rankings, skills, etc.)
Be a standardized metric that is comparable throughout multiple seasons, regardless of a season’s particular challenge and different score ranges.
Recognize and produce an RFORCE to each individual member of a team (athletes and coaches) and differentiate between each of their respective contributions to the team’s RFORCE.
Create rankings for teams, athletes, coaches, organizations and countries based on their RFORCE to determine the best competitors.
Give competitors the ability to claim their RFORCE and share their stories with the world and larger robotics community by owning and personalizing their profiles.
The following sections demonstrate how teams, athletes, coaches, organizations and countries in the VEX Robotics Competition receive points and build their RFORCE:
SCORING (Teams)
ATTRIBUTION
RANKINGS
Teams earn points by participating and scoring in events during a competition season. These are called Event Points (EPs).
EPs are then affected by the RFORCE Event Rating (RFER) of that particular event, a coefficient that takes into account the difficulty, size, level, and event number for that team. This generates the team’s Event Score (ES) for that particular event.
Finally, all of a team’s Event Scores are averaged as the season progresses, producing a team’s standing RFORCE
Scores are updated on a weekly basis as events occur. Rankings shift as RFORCE’s change while the season progresses. At the end of the season, after all events have been processed, the team, athlete, coach, and organization with the highest standing RFORCE is crowned as the RFORCE World Champion.
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Event Points (VRC)
Event Points for the VEX Robotics Competition take into account both Judge Awards and Rankings (Qualification, Finals, and Robot Skills).
A team’s EPs for judge-award-based VRC scoring systems are determined using empirical values assigned to each award based on the REC Foundation’s award descriptions and general community-based hierarchy.
Judge Awards (in EPs):
12 pts = Excellence Award
10 pts = Teamwork Finals Champion*
10 pts = Robot Skills Champion*
9 pts = Design Award
7 pts = Amaze, Innovate, and Think Awards
5 pts = Create and Build Awards
3 pts = Judges Award
1 pt = Inspire, Sportsmanship, and Energy Awards
*Not a Judge Award. Does not give Event Points through the Judge Award category, but rather from the Rankings category, see below.*
Rankings (Qualifications, Finals, and Robot Skills):
A team’s EPs for rank-based VRC scoring systems are determined using RFORCE’s Rankings Proportional Point Distribution System (RANK for short),
RANK distributes a portion of 10 points to each team at each rank. The higher the rank, the larger the portion of the 10 points earned. Additionally, the difference in the portions are always proportional (equal at each interval), but the size of the ranking affects the exact distribution of points at each interval. The larger the number of teams in that ranking, the smaller the difference in points gained per rank.
Rule of thumb: The #1 rank team always receives 10 points (for the Finals and Skills rankings, this is the equivalent to winning the award). Each rank thereafter receives only a portion of 10 pts, determined by rank and how many teams there are in that particular ranking (2nd place gets 9pts, 3rd gets 8pts, etc…)
RANK Formula:
[1+(T-R)]T*10 =RANK EPs
T: Total # of teams ranked in that category
R: Team’s rank in that category
*Rounded to the nearest hundredth.*
EXAMPLES (EPs earned by top 3 teams in each category at a 50 team event):
Qualifications (all 50 teams participate):
#1 rank: [1+(50-1)]50*10 = 10 pts
#2 rank: [1+(50-2)]50*10 = 9.8 pts
#3 rank: [1+(50-3)]50*10 = 9.6 pts
Finals (top 20 teams participate, 10 alliances):
#1 rank: [1+(10-1)]10*10 = 10 pts *
#2 rank: [1+(10-2)]10*10 = 9.5 pts
#3 rank: [1+(10-3)]10*10 = 9 pts
Robot Skills (hypothetical; only 38 teams participate):
#1 rank: [1+(38-1)]3810 = 10 pts *
#2 rank: [1+(38-2)]3810 = 9.74 pts
#3 rank: [1+(38-3)]3810 = 9.47 pts
*Winning the Teamwork Champion or Robot Skills Award (being ranked 1st in that ranking category), only scores the 10 pts distributed from the RANK. It does not reward additional points from the award category in that case.*
The RANK system allows for incremental and proportional rank valuation; eliminates tie-breakers and rewards Teams marginally for each rank climbed, as well as appropriately for each category. Essentially, every rank matters, and scoring consistently high across multiple tournaments is more rewarding then winning only once.
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The RFER is a coefficient that aims to accurately reflect the “caliber” of an event by integrating 4 factors into its calculation: difficulty, size, level, and how many events a team has done prior to this one. A team’s performance in a higher caliber event will affect their Event Points accordingly.
The RFER can be understood with these 4 main principles:
Performing at harder events (against better teams) is rewarded
Performing at larger events (in # of teams) is rewarded
Performing at higher-stakes events (qualification-required events) is rewarded
Performing at more events (throughout the season) is rewarded
The RFORCE Event Rating (RFER) is made up of:
Event Caliber (EC) – Average RFORCE of all teams at that event
Event Difficulty / Event Size
Event Difficulty (Sum of all teams’ RFORCEs at that event)
Event Size (# of teams at that event)
Event Level (EL)
Local = 1x
Regional = 1.25x
National = 1.5x
World = 2x
Event Number Bonus (ENB)
Additional points for each event attended by a team
RFER Formula:
1+log10(EC+1)(EL)(ENB)=RFER
EC: Event Caliber
EL: Event Level
ENB: Event Number Bonus
ENB Formula:
1+(EN2-1)LEN2=ENB
EN: Team’s current number of events in that season
LEN: Number of events of team with the most number of events attended (for calibration purposes)
Event Score & RFORCE
At each event, a team earns EPs, which are then multiplied by the RFER, producing a team’s Event Score (ES), for that event. The ES of one event can also be interpreted as the RFORCE for that one particular event.
ES Formula:
EP*RFER = ES
Finally, all Event Scores of a team are averaged throughout the season to yield that team’s standing RFORCE:
SES / EN = RFORCE
SES: Sum of all Event Score’s of that team’s events in that season
EN: Team’s current number of events in that season
The Team Rankings are then generated using teams’ RFORCEs.
Attribution explains how the RFORCEs for individuals (those that don’t have Robot Events data directly), are determined and categorized in the rankings. For Athletes and Coaches, we combine the team data with our own data (profile information) to attribute points based on their role.
Athletes are split into three roles: Drivers, Programmers, and Builders. Their RFORCEs are determined based on the categories of EPs that can be most reasonably attributed to their role (what they are most responsible for accomplishing, based on the REC Foundation Award descriptions). The Athlete Rankings are separated by role. While an athlete can serve the duties of multiple roles in their team, we ask that athletes choose their “primary role;” the role they spend the most time doing, have the biggest impact in, or resonates best with them, etc.
Coaches are attributed all of their team’s points in that season and are ranked in their own Ranking.
Based on an Athletes primary role, here is how EPs from an event are attributed. All attributed EPs are ones affected by that event’s RFER as well. It is essentially attributing a portion of their teams points to the one most responsible.
Drivers: Qualification Rank, Finals Rank, Driver Skills Rank
Programmers: Autonomous Points, Win Points, Programming Skills Rank, Innovate Award, Think Award
Builders: Qualification Rank, Finals Rank, Skills Rank, Design Award, Create Award, Build Award
All Roles: Excellence Award, Amaze Award
Coaches: attributed all of their team’s points in that season
For Countries and Organizations, the attribution is also made by combining Team data with RFORCE data. A country or organization’s RFORCE is determined in two steps:
Connecting all team profiles with their selected country or organization, by platform.
Attributing points from their teams to the countries and organizations, based on that team’s rank in its respective RFORCE rankings (using RANK again, but this time on RFORCE team rankings, not direct Robot Events rankings).
A country or organization’s RFORCE comes from the culmination (the sum) of all ranks of all their respective teams…
Country / Organization RFORCE Formula:
TR1 + TR2 + TR3 + … + TRn = RFORCE
TR = Team Rank
n = Number of teams
EXAMPLES For Countries and Organization RFORCEs
Organization A has 3 teams ranked 11, 53 and 2340 in the VEX IQ RFORCE Rankings (ranking a total of 5000 teams). RANK applies itself and rewards each team in that organization with their proportional amount of points, based on their rank, but this time on a RFORCE ranking.
For a ranking of the top 5000 VEX IQ teams, Organization A will earn:
#11 rank: [1+(5000-11)]50001000 = 998 pts
#53 rank: [1+(5000-53)]50001000 = 989.6 pts
#2340 rank: [1+(5000-2340)]50001000 = 532.2 pts
998 + 989.6 + 532.2 = 2519.8 pts
Organization A’s RFORCE is 2519.8
The same system applies for countries, separated by competition platform.
The RFORCE Rankings display the rank of teams, athletes, coaches, organizations and countries within the VEX Robotics Competition based on their RFORCE.
Rankings are categorized by competition platform and profile type. For athletes specifically, they are separated into primary role leaderboards: drivers, programmers, and builders.
The top 5,000 teams, the top 5,000 athletes in each role, the top 5,000 coaches, and all organizations and countries are ranked in the Rankings.
RFORCE has the goal of gathering competitive robotics data not only to determine who is truly the best across all metrics in the competition, but also to synthesize it into a more understandable format for the world to see the greatness all robotics competitors demonstrate. One single number, but such a deep story behind it. We aim to use this data for the benefit of competitive robotics community, to keep records of their work and sucesses. We want to create robotics legends.