[Bongle]

Warning: don't take the lack of year-to-year success correlation as a sign that no matter how hard you work, your placement is random, because that isn't what it means. These stats essentially tell you that maintaining support and talent from year-to-year is VERY difficult. There are many other stats I've done that indicate that cash on hand (# of regionals attended is a fair indication of that) and team age within a given year have a pretty strong correlation with team performance. Do a search for a bunch of stats I posted in march that had that kind of stuff in there. Back then I was trying to show that FIRST was kinda unfair towards richer, more established teams. However, then my team ended up doing very well and going to nationals, so now I don't care quite so much.

Short Version: As many teams know, it is really a crapshoot if your whole team stays together from year to year. 1281 lost our head gamepiece designer, programming mentor (me), half our student programmers, and our head teacher this year. That is why there is little correlation year to year.