MKS_sjacques

Bob, Thanks for the info, I also came across the javascript RR generator link, trouble with those is that they are "patterned", i.e. they follow the round robin algorithm and you can clearly see a pattern... what I wanted to do was to randomize the results such that there's no discernable pattern to the viewer... so it would be some form of the RR algorithm... I've even generated code that randomizes the columns after the RR schedule is created, but there's still a visible pattern by column... Thanks again for your inputs! Steve

I'm trying to write a flexible round robin program for randomly scheduling teams to play one another. There is one variable, the # of teams, which has to be an even number. The fixed constants are that every team has to play all of the other teams, but they only play all of the teams once, and all teams play on the same day every week... seems fairly straightforward to do... So what I have so far seems to work initially, but it then bogs down as the # of possible pairings dwindles... I basically initialize a 2D array (#teams x #teams-1) so for example if there's 10 teams, there would only be 9 sets of matches (9 weeks), as the teams don't play themselves. I have a couple of for loops to strip out the row and column indexes, a random # generator to generate random opponents, and some logic to sort out if the randomly selected team has played the matched team before (across the row) and if they were matched to play any other team that week (down the column). So in an 8 team environment, you could imagine the first weeks games as team 1 vs team 4, team 2 vs team 3, team 5 vs team 7, and team 6 vs team 8. The rub is that I have seen the algorithm pick the next weeks matchups as team 1 vs team 7, team 2 vs team 5, team 3 vs team 4, and it hangs because now it's trapped itself into team 6 vs team 8 again... Anyone ever do something like this? I was thinking I'll just keep scrapping the row until the program is able to randomly come up with a matching that works for that week, but I was hoping for a more scientific way to "randomly" generate a schedule... Any thoughts?

Rolf, Thank you for your reply, I did look through the NI site for info on this, I'll dig a little deeper. Fortunately the code was written some time ago (LV5 I believe) and therefore is using the older GPIB communication VIs. I was actually going to set this up to play with it a little... since it appears that it's possible it's just a matter of figuring out how to accomplish it. Thanks again! Steve

Has anyone ever shared 1 GPIB device with 2 PCs? I have an expensive piece of equipment that I would like to share across several test platforms via GPIB, and I wanted to find out any caveats/tips/tricks before I go down this path... Your help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

I have been given the task of interviewing and assessing someone's LV skills over the phone, and I was wondering if anyone out there might have encountered this before, and if so would you be so kind as to share your experience and process? I have interviewed 3 people so far, with mixed results. I usually try to have them walk me through a high level thought process of a basic configure/test/output results test routine, then I try to zoom in on certain areas of fundamentals, like state machines, error control, data collection/reporting, and some basic communications. Then I try to get a little more detailed, describing a device that we are to gather data from, and having them walk me through it, complete with asking me the right questions... Which brings me to the dilemma. During this whole process, I'm basically listening for the right buzzwords spoken at the right times. I'm also trying to gauge their thought process... but there HAS to be a better and more quantifyable way! Does anyone have any sample tests that they give out? Something that I can have them fill out at a recruiter's office? Thank you. Steve