Number of Matches at the Championship

[BBnum3]

Originally Posted by Pat Fairbank

I disagree with your assessment that seven matches are not enough for accurate seeding at the Championship.

For those teams who perform consistently at the same level, seven matches are plenty to accurately determine their ranking. For teams who don't perform consistently due to periodic mechanical breakdowns or driver inexperience or lack of testing time, perhaps seven are not enough to allow them to "find their groove". But at the Championships, the pinnacle of the FIRST competition season, it only makes sense that the teams that can perform consistently well by that point should be rewarded accordingly in the rankings, as opposed to holding more matches as an equalizer. There are five tough levels of elimination rounds to get through in order to win the Championship, and for a team prone to inconsistent performance, that's a lot of time in which something could go wrong.

That makes a lot of sense to me now. Although seven matches may not be optimal, I think you are right that seven does a good job. Robots do need to perform consistently, and my team's was an example of that. Our robot was not nearly as advanced as a lot of other teams, but we made 10/10 in the lower goal in every single autonomous and ended up with the sixth seed. Regardless of seeding, the best and most consistent teams will prevail in eliminations.