Correlation between driving skill and practice field availability

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Practice field + Practice bot + Iteration = awesome sauce

Re-quoted for truth.

I think a better title for the thread might be "Correlation between driving skill and driving practice"

I mean, think about it: Don't you get better at something you do often? Why do you think a 45 year old car driver is so much more likely to not have accidents that, say, an 18 year old?

It has been said that it takes 5,000 hours of doing something to get really good at it (after which improvements are negligible). But the first hours bring a greater relative improvement than the last hours.

If you driver practices several hundred hours, they might not win a competition, but they will surely get the robot to perform to its highest capabilities. (Manipulator operators as well).

[Jared Russell]

You don't need a 27 x 54 foot regulation field, but yes - having an adequately-sized practice space and the time to practice (with either your early-completed competition bot or with a practice bot) has a strong correlation with winning.