FTC Glossary

OPR

Offensive Power Rating: a least-squares estimate of how many points a team adds to whatever alliance they are on, solved from every qualification alliance score at one event. OPR in depth →

OPRc

A constrained, penalty-free version of OPR, fit section by section over the score details FIRST publishes, so a team's contribution can never come out negative. It is what the world rankings sort on. OPRc in depth →

Clean OPR

OPR solved against penalty-free scores: each alliance's final minus the fouls its opponent committed. It is the number to use when comparing teams across events with different officiating. Clean OPR →

True OPRc

A team's own-earned contribution from autonomous and teleop scoring, solved by non-negative least squares. Penalty points never enter it. True OPRc →

CCWM

Calculated Contribution to Winning Margin: the same fit run against score margin, so it credits defence alongside offence. In a game with little defensive interaction it is mostly OPR plus noise, which is why it is still computed but no longer tabled. CCWM →

Strength

Clean OPR adjusted for the schedule a team actually drew, by adding back their average opponent OPR minus the event average. A team who never faced a strong alliance is discounted for it. Strength →

Consistency

The standard deviation of a team's match residuals, a residual being what their alliance scored minus what the fit expected. Lower is steadier, and it describes the alliance's output, not the robot alone. Consistency →

Reliability

Consistency rescaled to a 0 to 1 score against the event's mean Clean OPR, so steadiness at a high-scoring event can be read beside steadiness at a low-scoring one. Higher is steadier. Reliability →

Luck

How much of a team's record came from the draw. Partner luck is their average partner OPR minus the event average, schedule luck is the event average minus their average opponent OPR, and total luck is the sum, which reduces to how much stronger their partners were than their opponents. Luck →

Rank

A team's finishing position after qualification matches, published by the FIRST scorekeeper. Rank 1 picks first at alliance selection, and playoff results never move it. Rank, RP, TBP and QP →

Ranking points (RP)

The primary ranking sort since the 2021-22 season. Each qualification match awards an alliance points for the objectives that season's game manual names: DECODE gives 3 for a win and 1 for a tie, plus one apiece for the movement, goal and pattern thresholds, which are set higher at championship level. Both teams on an alliance always receive the same RP.

Tie breaker points (TBP)

The first tiebreaker between teams level on RP. What it counts is set per season: in DECODE it is total autonomous points across a team's qualification matches, with endgame points behind that.

Qualifying points (QP)

The pre-2021-22 ranking system, which older events on this site still display. A team earned 2 QP for winning a qualification match and 1 for a tie, and teams level on QP were separated by ranking points, which then meant the losing alliance's score.

Qualification match

A match whose partners and opponents are assigned by the event schedule. Every metric on this site is fit over qualification matches only, because playoff alliances are chosen and the independence a fit needs is gone.

Autonomous, TeleOp and endgame

A match opens with an autonomous period, where robots run pre-loaded code alone, and then a driver-controlled TeleOp period whose closing stretch is the endgame. OPRc splits a team's contribution across those periods, and DECODE counts autonomous points alone as its first tiebreaker.

Penalty-free score

An alliance's score with penalty points taken out. A foul an alliance commits is awarded to the other side, so the penalty-free figure is the posted final minus the opponent's committed fouls, and it is what the record book and every metric here use.

Ranking point threshold

A score an alliance has to reach in a match to bank an achievement RP. The thresholds move with the level of the event, so the same match earns a different RP count at a qualifier and at the FIRST Championship. Score a match →

Alliance selection

The round after qualification where the top-ranked teams form the playoff alliances by picking from the rest of the field. Captains are seated in rank order, and a captain can never be picked by another alliance.

Alliance captain

The team who holds an alliance and makes its pick. Where FIRST publishes the alliance selection the captain is read straight from it; where it does not, the captain is the best qualification rank on the alliance, which selection order guarantees.

Alliance number

An alliance's seed, 1 being the top alliance. It is recoverable from the advancement points as 21 minus the alliance component, and a captain and a pick score the same there.

Playoff bracket

The double-elimination bracket the seeded alliances play after qualification. It is a set of series, and which series fed which, along with every winner, is reconstructed here from the matches FIRST publishes.

Advancement points

The points FIRST publishes per team from the 2025-26 season on, which decide who moves up out of an event. Four components make the total: qualification rank (2 to 16), playoff alliance (15 to 20), playoff finish (5 to 40) and judged awards (3 to 60), for at most 136 at a single event. Teams are ordered on the total, then on award points.

Judged award

An award the judging panel decides from a team's portfolio, interviews and community work, including Inspire, Think, Connect, Design, Motivate, Control and Innovate. Judged team awards carry advancement points; mentor and individual awards, Dean's List among them, carry none.

Inspire Award

The top judged award at an event, given to the team that best embodies FIRST across every judged category. At 60 advancement points it outweighs winning the playoffs.

Alliance award

Winning Alliance and Finalist Alliance appear in a team’s award list but are playoff results. Advancement counts them under the playoff component, so naming them as judged awards would credit one result twice; the division equivalents at a split championship are handled the same way. Award index →

Qualifier

An event that feeds a championship: teams earn advancement points there and the top of the field moves up. Super qualifiers and league tournaments sit at the same level.

League

A set of teams who play several meets together and rank across all of them. FIRST identifies one by a region code plus a league code, and a league page here is addressed by that code.

League meet

One event inside a league's season. A team's league standing is built from every meet they play, so a single meet's rank is only part of the picture.

League tournament

The event that closes a league's season, played by the teams who ranked through its meets. It carries advancement points like any other qualifying event.

Championship

A state, regional or national championship, the level a qualifier advances teams to. The FIRST Championship sits at the top of it, and a large championship may split its field into divisions.

Division

One half or quarter of a split championship, playing its own qualification matches and its own playoffs. Here a division is a view of its parent event at ?division= on the parent's URL, and alliance numbers repeat from one division to the next.

Scrimmage

An unofficial event, off-season ones included. Results are on record wherever FIRST published them, and nothing advances out of them.

Remote event

The 2020 and 2021 format, where a team played from its own shop and posted a score with no opponent. Every metric here excludes remote events, because a contribution cannot be solved out of an alliance of one.

Every event's Rankings tab carries the full metric table for that event, every team's Stats tab carries theirs event by event, and the world rankings aggregate them into a season standing. The same records answer over MCP with no account: see the two servers.