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I have a seemingly simple question. There are 12 teams competing in 6 different events. Each event is seeing two teams compete. Is there a way to arrange the schedule so that no two teams meet twice and no teams repeat an event.

Thanks.

Edit: Round 1: All 6 events happen at the same time. Round 2: All 6 events happen at the same time. And so on until Round 6.

  • 0
    Sure-don't play any games. More seriously, do you want each team to play 6 games, in which case they will only meet 6 other teams? It should be easy-just start making a chart.2012-05-18
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    I once spent some hours writing up code for solving this exact problem (but with more teams) for a summer camp. Suddenly a guy walked in the door, handed me a hand-made solution, said nothing and left.2012-05-18
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    Take a look at this http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~jds/research/files/jdls_patat2004_1.pdf, and this http://www.ic.uff.br/~celso/artigos/sports-scheduling.pdf2012-05-18
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    Yes, each team only meets 6 other teams. I tried to make some chart but the constraints become very difficult to fulfill. The reason for such difficulty has to do with the number 6. If there were 14 teams competing in 7 events it would be much easier: it suffices to set up the teams in two groups of 7 and rotate them any which way through the 7 (prime number) events.2012-05-18
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    This is reminiscent of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirkman's_schoolgirl_problem2012-05-18

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