When Does Age of a Team Not Matter?

[Jon Stratis]

Even the best, most seasoned teams have off years. Key students graduate and no one steps up to "fill their shoes". Key mentors stop participating for whatever reason (get a job out of state, for example), and the team struggles without them. Or maybe the team just reaches a little too far one year and can't get everything working. I've seen it happen to veteran teams. And i worry every year that it might happen to us...

The problem with setting expectations based simply on team number comes when people don't meet your expectations. if you expect someone to be one of the best robots there and they aren't, you're going to think they're a lot worse than they really are. Likewise, if someone is bad year after year and they suddenly do decently, you'll rank them a lot higher because of the surprise.