World Rankings
 

Does finishing 9th in a division in elimination rounds and going to semifinals in the division put us in the top 40 teams in the World? Hmmm?

Re: World Rankings
 

It's kind of up to you where you want to rank yourself. 48 teams make it to the semis at Championships. 3 per alliance, 4 alliances per field, 4 fields. 36 teams finish 9th or better in seeding a championships. I haven't seen much of your team, so I'm not suggesting where you rank among the best, just giving you some comparison. Sometimes great teams seed pretty low, and sometimes teams get lucky and seed high. I would base it more off how you felt you performed, rather than quantifying how you did based on position. I wouldn't stress about your "ranking" too much. Making it to champs is an accomplishment, and it sounds like you did pretty well.

Re: World Rankings
 

There is a reason for not having an overall ranking (GP, CP). Also, no one would agree on a single ranking system. There is a ton of debate over the weighting of balance points, alliance contribution, pick order and the such. Also, other very good teams did not make it to championships.

If you are purely interested in how other people view your ranking I will point you here: http://frctop25.com/CurrentRankings.html

Re: World Rankings
 

Here is one ranking I publish that some people look at. It is the World Adjusted OPR ranking. The adjustment is to give 10 bridge points for each coop bridge balance. Remember this is based on every match of every regional/district so it is a whole season's ranking and not based on best finish.
Your team is ranked 70 out of 2332 teams which is very good. Congratulations on your team's excellent performance in Michigan and St. Louis.
I will be publishing all the OPR results some time this week. I am working on the event finish for teams to take into account substitutions which the current macro does not handle very well.

Re: World Rankings
 

One data analysis we did was to look at a teams average scores in matches across an event and compare that to the average scores of all matches at the event. It was a rough way to evaluate how a robot performed relative to the overall performance level of the event.

What this can do is adjust "opr" relative to the event and when the event occurred. For example week one events are generally lower scoring as teams figure out the game and system. By week 6 teams have multiple events and everyone has learned the game. So a team scoring 20 points week one might be the top performer, but by week 6 could be middle of the pack.

Re: World Rankings
 

I think you have a reasonable argument for your team having a Top 36 performance at the World Championship:

There are 4 divisions, so a 9th place qualifying is arguably a Top 36 finish.

Making it to the semis, there were 48 teams left. Of those 48 teams, the 3rd members are usually considered a lower "rank" than the Captains and 1st pick, thus remove about 16 teams and you would be around the top 32 left playing.

Your alliance did an amazing job, and your team has a lot to be proud of. On Friday, I really thought you guys would end up the #1 qualifier.


As far as "World Rankings"... There are a lot of ways to slice and dice that data with a ton of different metrics.
Should you consider previous years, or just 2012?
Should you consider previous performances or just the last performance?
What about some of the finalists that didn't get to go to the championship?
What about...?
What about...?

All in all though, I think you have a good performance data to back up a statement of Top 40 performance.