05-25-2016 11:57 AM

D.Allred

Re: paper: FRC Participation

Thanks for sharing the analysis.

Why did you chose to use the previous year's team count to calculate % growth and the current year team count to calculate % attrition? Using the same denominator seems to be a better approach.

David

05-25-2016 12:28 PM

rick.oliver

Re: paper: FRC Participation

Thanks for checking the equations. I corrected my editing error and made both calculations using the previous year's total in the denominator.

05-25-2016 01:46 PM

Karthik

Re: paper: FRC Participation

Thanks to Rick for this amazing resource. Some things that jumped out at me after just a quick glance.
Thanks to Rick for this amazing resource. Some things that jumped out at me after just a quick glance.

- Only 58% teams who have ever existed still exist today. That means we've lost 42% of all FRC teams.
- Only 73% of teams make it to their 3rd season
- Only 62% of teams make it to their 5th season
- Only 48% of teams make it to their 10th season

It's one thing to look at attrition rates of 5-10% and think those are minor, but those rates compound pretty quickly over time.

05-25-2016 02:44 PM

Citrus Dad

Re: paper: FRC Participation

This is an important analysis. A lot of work went into this.

However, the graphics are a bit misleading--it looks like FRC has a net loss in many years when every actually has experienced net growth. So I suggest that you relabel "Growth" as "Net Growth," "Rookie Teams" as "New Teams" (to be understandable to a non-FRC audience), and add the New Teams line to each of the graphics.

Another idea is to show the attrition rate as a negative number and then use some other graphic formats such as Area to show net growth.

05-25-2016 02:49 PM

hawktomatoes

Re: paper: FRC Participation

Thanks for sharing the document! The information was surprising to me and these percentages stand out even more! Although, I was expecting the "teams who have ever existed that still exist today" number to be a little bit higher

05-25-2016 03:40 PM

rick.oliver

Re: paper: FRC Participation

[quote=Karthik;1589563]Thanks to Rick for this amazing resource. .../QUOTE]

I appreciate the recognition. jgerstein did the hard work and posted the google doc I started with.

05-25-2016 03:41 PM

Karthik

Re: paper: FRC Participation

I had the same reaction the first time I ever looked at these types of numbers a few years ago. ( http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...25&postcount=3 ) We instinctively see low yearly attrition rates and mistakenly forget how these rates compound over time. Similar to the first time you study radioactive decay of isotopes.

05-25-2016 09:15 PM

rick.oliver

Re: paper: FRC Participation

I added a new version which incorporated some of the feedback and generated a "Survival Rates" graph. Picture pending

05-25-2016 10:49 PM

Michael Hill

Re: paper: FRC Participation

A further stat that would be really interesting (albeit impossible to collect) would be which teams folded completely out of FRC vs. teams that went to another robotics program (Vex, FTC, BEST, etc.). I think what we should really be interested in is WHY so many teams are leaving. Just recognizing the situation is a good first step.

05-26-2016 09:24 AM

rick.oliver

Re: paper: FRC Participation

One final note, the data set is missing close to 15% of the team numbers ever assigned.

Net, the attrition is understated and the survival rates are overstated.