[EricH]

Originally Posted by lemiant

Al, this is one thing I think you are mis-representing. Yes the rookie class has elite teams and the veteran class has elite teams, but these two are not comparable. What is the highest team number ever to win champs? 1114.
Some awesome things can be done with a lot of dedication and very little resources but I don't remember the last time one of those brand-new, little teams knocked out your alliance at champs.

FIRST is H-A-R-D!!! And to compete with the best your going to need comparable resources.

Two rookies made Einstein in 2010. In 2009, a single rookie made Einstein. Two years before that, in 2007, a sophomore team made Einstein (and that same team almost went the year before; their robot started having parts fail in division finals). And it took 2056 multiple years to make Einstein; they still haven't won it, despite having not lost a single regional they've attended since starting up. (They were Galileo semifinalists their rookie year.) If you're looking for winning the Championships as your measure of winning, 3/2353 teams will win it this year; that's 0.127%, which means it's pretty tough on just about everyone to win it. (Odds improve to about 0.88% if you just factor in the roughly 340 Championship teams.) Yes, those are under 1% chance for any given team.