I have tried to respond to this about three times now, and every time I do. I run into a block. I change my mind halfway through and rewrite it. I must say, it is rather annoying. So here goes try number four.
You ask when the age of the team doesn’t matter… There are many cases in which the age will cease to matter.
Case 1:
It’s a team’s rookie year, and they finish in dead last place. The year after they seeded in 15th, picked for finals, lost their first two matches. Does this team’s age cease to matter? Let’s wait until next year to judge shall we? This year is here. They build a robot that is riddled with problems. The mentors don’t care about the student’s learning; just that they have fun. Now, they seed 44th and still get chosen for finals. Again, they lose their first two matches. Does this team’s age still matter? No. Obviously they know how to build robots that are nice. They just can’t keep the problems away. But in time they will learn; though with mentors like this, I would not expect the team to last very much longer.
Case 2:
The team has been around close to 5 years. Only once have they made it to Atlanta; though this can just be blamed on bad luck. Does this team’s age matter? No. They have been around long enough to where they know what they are doing. Everyone expects them to have a rather nice robot.
Case 3:
A rookie team has just been started. None of the students have ever built a robot before. I would expect this team to take about 3 to 4 years to be able to build a very nice robot. To me, this team’s age still matters. I would give them plenty of slack. But I would expect them to have tons of spirit.
Case 4:
A rookie team has just been started. Except this team was started by two college students who where both on a FIRST team. They find two or three students that just finished their FIRST season. These 5 people start up a new FIRST team and recruit about 10 other students. (Without robot experience.) Over the summer they train these new students. They learn to work with their mentors and sponsors. To me, I would fear this team just as much as I would fear a team with 4 years under their belt.
Case 5:
148, 1114, 111, 254, 217, and 33. Enough said. Age no longer matters.
Just my $0.02
-Rion