[IKE]

Sean, thank you for looking into this. Great Thread

I am going to look at this slightly different.

If you look at the top of the curve, you won't see a ton of difference. Hot is still Hot and The Chickens are still the Chickens. The are both awesome and will likely continue to be that way as long as they keep putting in the great efforts that they do (keep it up guys).

One of the most important parts of the curve though is the bottom end. By this I mean the teams that only do 1 event and then dissappear or continually only do 1 event and never seem to improve. You won't hear a lot fo saber rattling from these guys as typically they are too busy trying to get a bot to drive straight. It has been brought up many times that FRC has a horrible attrition rate. This I have been told is one of the main goals of FiM. Teams that have trouble at the first event have 12 matches to get their stuff sorted out, and then most importantly another event to go to where they can try again.

One solid metric you will find is that those that play more do better. What is meant by that is there are few that continuously play at the Championship level (elims at Championship) that only go to 1 regional. Most of the teams competing in the elims go to 2 events and some even do 3 before Nationals. Line up the usual suspects and check. 71, 1114, 2056, 217, 33, 67, 254, 233, ..... You will see that one common thread is multiple events (there are other threads). This is more than just the extra stick time (that does help), it is the opportunity to try different things, learn, and grow. I just got off the phone with a Rookie team that most years would have done 1 event. They didn't get their auto mode going until the 5th match at their first event (death this year), but once they got going, they were good enough to get picked and played in the elims. They also made it to the State Championship. Because of their success, they are going to do off season events! This team most years would have had very little success and then folded into another high number dissappearing statistic. Instead, I have high hopes for their future.

To those focusing on the top of the curve, listen to Lil' Lavery, there is nothing new there.
Spotting Champions is easy. They have big shiny metals around their necks and are grinning from ear to ear while standing on podiums. Focus in on the other parts of the curve. I saw a lot more smiles and success from Rookies and young teams that hadn't quite figured out how to turn an OK season into a great one. I saw teams that have been mid pack really blosom when given the same chance at doing multiple events that bigger budget teams have.

I am not sure how to measure this other than number of matches and looking at possibly OPR shifts between events, and awards records. The other "evidence" I have is purely anecdotal which does have value, but often is skewed. In a couple of years, retention data should have statistical significance (though the economy would likely skew some of that too), but I can't see the rest of FRC being happy with a FiM Only Pilot that goes on for several years....

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I did have an interesting idea of measuring some of this. I am just not good enough at programming. If someone could go on TBA or FIRST records and show the amount of matches and Elim matches for teams over the last 3 years in MI, I think this might show some good data. It should show a big birth of new teams getting to play in Elims and getting more matches. Personally I feel that is a good thing towards sustainable growth.