BY THE NUMBERS

It was brought to my attention that some rookie coaches skip the project as a strategy or put all their eggs into the Robot Game basket.  Though I have plenty of anecdotal evidence to the contrary, it made me curious about what the numbers reveal about such a strategy, and how I could represent that visually.
The following is a sampling from 5 qualifiers within the same FLL season.

What some coaches don't know because they have missed it in the Challenge guide is::

1. You are automatically disqualified from any awards AND advancement if you don't do the project, which includes the Robot Performance Award. See here for a way to communicate that to your team in a fun way as a logic puzzle.
2. You are required to share your project to nominated for a Project Award.
   
3. Core Values is the only overarching category that can override all other evidence of achievement. When all teams are great, the team that best represents the FIRST mission is always preferred.

From the sample in the Venn diagram, it turns out that the numbers support what I already knew.

1. Out of the 16 teams that were strong in the robot game but did not get nominated in Core Values or Project, only 4 of them advanced. This gives you a 25% chance of advancing with this strategy which is worse than the overall 35% from the full sample that advanced.
2. Of the teams that were nominated in at least 2 categories, the only 2 that did not advanced was one that didn't meet the 75% game rank cutoff because of equipment malfunction and another that was at a qualifier where there were already 8 other teams that were strong in 2-3 categories. That means a 95% chance of advancing if you use that strategy.
3. Notice the implications by category:
   1. 29 of 32 (91%) of teams nominated in Core Values advanced.
   2. 34 of 38 (89%) of teams nominated in Project advanced.
   3. 36 of 42 (86%) of teams nominated in Robot Design advanced.
   4. 32 of 50 (64%) of teams in the top 10 of the Robot Game advanced.
   5. The above indicate a team with exceptional Core Values is more highly correlated with advancement then a high scoring team.
4. Is it okay to not be strong on the robot field? 15 teams advanced without being in the top 10 on robot game (that's 35% of the advancing teams). It always helps to be better at the robot game, but not at the expense of Project and Core Values.

I will revisit this analysis after a completed season of City Shapers.