Highest Litter Scores

[rclothier]

Per request, here is a list of the lowest per-match Litter scores at a Regional or District.

Rank Score Team Event
1....... 0.1... 148.. Dallas
2....... 0.7...2170.. NE Waterbury
3....... 0.9...4845.. Lake Superior
4....... 0.9...3461.. NE Waterbury
5....... 1.0...5143.. Lake Superior
6....... 1.2...3350.. Dallas
7....... 1.3...1124.. NE Waterbury
8....... 1.3....987.. Dallas
9....... 1.3...4818.. Lake Superior
10..... 1.3....236.. NE Waterbury
11..... 1.3...1071.. NE Waterbury
12..... 1.4...2897.. Dallas

What we can take from this is there wasn't as much noodle action in Week 1, which produced all of these scores.

So, let's put the data to some better use. First of all, the litter scores generally increased week by week. Here is the average of the lowest and highest litter score at each event week by week:

Week 1: 34.2 / 202.6
Week 2: 54.2 / 239.4
Week 3: 55.2 / 227.3
Week 4: 67.3 / 282.6
Week 5: 70.3 / 263.5

The average high Litter score was 246, while the average low score was 58.

The scores also varied widely between events. For example, the lowest scores at Mexico City (140) and PNW Central Washington (130) were higher than the highest score at Dallas (117), Waterbury (110), and New York (128).

Interestingly, not all low Litter scorers were bad teams. In fact, 3 of the low scorers (out of 88) ended up ranked #1: 148 at Dallas, 33 at FIM Southfield, and 125 at NE Rhode Island. However, scoring high is always helpful: 17 of the high Litter scorers ranked #1, and 9 were ranked #2.

The average Rank of the high Litter scorer at each event was 7.9, while for the low Litter scorer, it was 29.6. So on average, higher ranked teams did better (not surprisingly).

The average team number for the high Litter scorer was 2490, while for low scorers it was 2929. So it skews a bit toward older teams, but not much.

What's it all mean? Litter points are helpful, but you can have a successful strategy that doesn't rely heavily on them.