Cumulative Time (or Average Time) as a Scoring Method

[Cory]

The following is from the "Anecdotal Comments" section of my Experiments web page, http://pack146.nova.org/pinewood/exper.html.

"Keeping your track in a constant position is a major concern when doing testing of this type. A seemingly minor shift in track position can easily affect times by 2 or 3 hundredths of a second. I had to restart several tests because the times 'just went all to heck' right in the middle of a set!"

For the past several years, our District has used cumulative time as their scoring method. Each car would get four heats on their four-lane track, one heat per lane. The four times are added together, low total wins.

Simple lane rotation charts were used, without re-ordering the chart to keep the heat counts even. Thus, each contestant had 4 consecutive heats, or in some cases, 1, 2, or 3 heats at the beginning, and then 3, 2, or 1 heats at the end, respectively.

The starting line was one that was "held closed" by a rubber band, rather than one that is "pulled open" when a mechanical or solenoid "latch" is released.

Some of my parents whose sons have competed in our District derby have complained. They have noted that the track does get bumped, both by kids and adults. They have questioned whether a starter can, for forty heats, push the starting gate open with acceptable consistency against the resistance of the rubber band. They have seen their boys' heat times fluctuate, particularly when their heats are split between the beginning and the end.

On occasion, they have seen their son win all four of his heats convincingly, but still not win a trophy. While it's easy for me to understand how this happens, explaining it to a 1st or 2nd grader is difficult. And with this scoring method, it is certainly possible for Car A to lose 1 or 2 heats and still come in first over Car B that not only won all its heats, but also beat Car A head-to-head.

Some of these concerns are addressable. Others I'm not so sure about, though. Thoughts, anyone?

[dknowles67]

Two years ago, our District races had a track with several lanes (8-12, I can't remember exactly). Each scout raced in every lane, and the times were shown in an LCD display over each lane, and sent to a laptop computer. A large number of scouts (can't remember how many) raced in a short period of time. The whole race was over in less than an hour. They had helpers (no racers involved) placing the cars at the top of the track, and others bringing them back to the table from the bottom of the track. As soon as the cars at the bottom were out of the way, the ones at the top were let loose. When the race was over, the results from an Excel spreadsheet were printed out, and copies passed to each racer. It showed each racers time in each lane, and the average time. It was sorted by fastest average time. The whole printout fit on one page as I recall, so there must have been less than 30 racers or so. The print-out was pretty self-explanitory, and it was easy to determine the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place cars. I remember my son got 6th place, but was less than 1/100th of a second behind the average time of the 1st place car. I have always thought this method to be superior to (more fair than) our Pack's 3-lane, double elimination method.

[Stan Pope]

Almost every method is superior to double elimination. (exceptions are single elimination and manipulated ... but that is a story for another post)

Shoot for a method that delivers the excitement of racing combined with unquestionable fairness and good accuracy.

Watching adults race the boys' cars ranks pretty far down on the "excitement of racing" scale (according to my now 25 y.o. Cub Scout.)

[Darin McGrew]

For the past several years, our District has used cumulative time as their scoring method. Each car would get four heats on their four-lane track, one heat per lane. The four times are added together, low total wins.[...]

The starting line was one that was "held closed" by a rubber band, rather than one that is "pulled open" when a mechanical or solenoid "latch" is released.

A time-based system should use an automatically opened gate, not a manually opened gate. Actually, so should a points-based or elimination system, but it's especially inappropriate for a time-based system. A manually opened gate just doesn't have the consistency you need.

Simple lane rotation charts were used, without re-ordering the chart to keep the heat counts even. Thus, each contestant had 4 consecutive heats, or in some cases, 1, 2, or 3 heats at the beginning, and then 3, 2, or 1 heats at the end, respectively.

We used to use this system without a timer, determining who moved on to the next round by points. Using points, it isn't a very fair system because cars race against the same opponents repeatedly. Regardless, it isn't a very interesting system because cars race against the same opponents repeatedly. In addition, staging is slowed down because all the cars but one in each race were in the previous race, so you can't really start staging a race until the cars from the previous race have been retrieved from the finish line.

Using a system that schedules cars against different opponents and that schedules a car's races throughout the event is beneficial even for derbies that use elapsed time to determine winners. If the track is bumped at some point during the race, then the unfairness tends to be distributed more evenly. And it's less likely that a car will win all its races and not win a trophy.

It's also important to explain to everyone how the winners are determined. It doesn't have to be a detailed explanation of the scheduling algorithm, but they need to know (for example) that it's a car's cumulative results that matter, not its results from any one heat.