Chief Delphi - Team Consistancy

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Re: Team Consistancy

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bongle (Post 561859)

Also note that teams with great consistency are VERY rare.

Here is a graph I made during a rather heated thread where someone was complaining about the existence of the mythical "first place every year" team.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/at...4&d=1162868157

Notice how a given bracket of performers in one year spread out ALL OVER the performance distribution in the following year. There is SOME correlation: teams that came towards the very bottom in 2005 tended to not win in 2006 (but could still get as high as top 20%). Teams that did very well in 2005 tended to not come dead last in 2006. But that was it. If you placed in the top 10% of 2005 robots, you could've ended up anywhere from first place to top 80% in 2006. There is a great deal of mobility in FIRST.

Note that if there was great consistency from year to year, this graph would be a line from the bottom left corner to the top right corner.

It will be very interesting to make another graph like this one comparing 2005 and 2007. Since both games are 'manipulator' years, then there should be more consistency.

What about a graph from 1999 (since its the first year of alliances) to the present? Year on one axis, performance level on the other, and each succesful team throughout that time period gets a line that charts their success, even if it would stretch back to a time of limited success.

I agree that consistent teams are rare, however, because if I were to count, I'd probably only end up with 25 teams.

But that's no matter, eh? Because even if there were only one consistent team, then there would still be room to analyze their roads to success, and formulate an effective plan to steer your team down a (possibly) seperate, but coincident path to achieve that same consistent level of success.

Re: Team Consistancy

The key to consistency is to have consistent team members. And who are the most consistent team members? Teachers and mentors. Even the most dedicated student can only realistically be around for 4 years. And in that time, a dedicated student will build a tremendous amount of knowledge about FIRST. That is everything from knowledge of building techniques, programming ability, the ability to interject reality into design discussions, a feel for the game and strategy, basically everything.

But once that person leaves, most often for college, that talent is gone.

But if you have a mentor (industry professional or teacher) that is as dedicated as the student, that talent and knowledge will be around for a long time. Also, mentors tend to have more power than students when it comes to organization. So even though a student might want to hold off season prototyping and training sessions, its not going to happen without a mentor just as dedicated.

Like it or not, this is a program that cant be won, consistently, without dedicated mentors (I tend to not like that fact). However, I wouldnt trade my student-run experience for one where the mentors are the most dedicated people on my team. FIRST, to me, isnt about winning. It is about the journey more than anything else. It is about pride that I recieved when our team over comes the odds against us.