[Vupa]

Luck. For lower-tier teams luck plays a large role. This is luck in design (stumbling upon the right design early), luck in build season (stars align and your build season goes smoothly), luck in competition (match schedules, high tier teams noticing you, etc.).

Of course luck isn't everything, but it definitely is something. The points everyone else has mentioned are all very important (maybe not the corn dogs), but to overcome the luck barrier means that you need to have a ginormous base of skills and knowledge. Even great teams fail to beat out bad luck with raw robotics expertise.

The only way to overcome luck (besides being lucky), is to eliminate places where luck may play a role. Although impossible in some places such as match schedules and certain aspects of competition a lot of the time you can replace luck with large amounts of dedication. This is dedication in literally everything: design, strategy, driver practice, scouting, learning, etc.

In example, build season has started and your ready to go, to eliminate luck in design, you need to put the effort into prototyping every mechanism you find viable, this means having a crew of people working around the clock to find the right design for your resources and skill level. Look through concepts on Chief Delphi, watch all of the Robot in 3 Days videos, study resources that teams put out (like Simbot Seminars).

To be a Einstein level team you need to eliminate the places where luck exists and replace them with a base of knowledge and skill and a base of dedication.