Quote:
Originally Posted by XaulZan11
I understand what you are saying, but if you talk to nearly every psycologist, past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. If there was no correlation or indication, then we would expect teams like 71, 111, 233, 1114 to have a normal distribution of results (ie win 3 regionals in a year just as often as not getting picked for the eliminations in one year). As we know, however, these teams always are some of the top teams. I think you mean that the correlation is not strong enough to be a used. If so, I agree.
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Again to go back to the stats I did a few years back, a team's seeding performance in one year is a very poor predictor of its performance in the year following.
Here's a graph:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/at...6&d=1175831673
On the X axis is a team's seeding performance in 2005. Further left is better. On the Y axis is a team's seeding performance in 2006, lower is better. You'll see about the only thing you can predict is that teams who were top seeds in 2005 tended to not be dead last in 2006. Likewise, teams who did very poorly in 2006 tended to not win the following year (but some did). Past behavior predicting future behavior may work well in humans, but not so much in robotics teams.
The teams that do well year after year are very special cases. Out of the 1500ish active teams in FIRST, people can probably only name 50ish 'power houses' who win year after year after year and never hiccup.
On the main topic:
Keep in mind that a team's next-year performance will probably be modified FAR more by who they communicate in the pits with, rather than who they play with on the field. If you play 8 games, you're only on the field for 16-20 minutes, but you're at the regional in the proximity of other robotics teams (whether in the hotel, pits, stands, or fields) for 72 hours. The 71 hours and 40 minutes that you're not on the field are where your entire team can learn from vets, not just on-field.