In just about every match, the under-dog team has won.
In just about every team, the under-dog team had defects that should have deemed then unfit for survival. the "favored" team tended to have traits that should have led to their victory, better communication, strategy, etc. At most, the favored team suffered from over-confidence and ego when they compared themselves to their underdog opponent. However, this arrogance didn't seem to be overwhelming (they didn't slack off during the fight or act like the hare racing the tortoise).
In round one of most of these fights, the underdog team takes a beating, and loses some actuators. The favored team takes a few hits, but it appears to be cosmetic. In the very first fight, the favored team didn't do more than a cursory glance at their bot, subsequent matches the "winning" team is a bit more thorough.
In any event, the underdog has to replace blown actuators with new ones. Fresh parts.
The favored team looks at their hardware, and sees no real obvious problem. At most, they tight a few loose bolts, because that's all that APPEARS to be wrong.
As such, the underdog enters round 2 with fresh parts, and re-adjusted hoses, etc. The match favorite enters with equipment that has been stressed, but hasn't failed yet.
As a result, the underdog bot lands a few blows, and suddenly the "winning" bot blows its actuators, breaks in half, etc.
This pattern where the round 1 loser (who was also the under dog in virtually every case) wins round 2, and often in a KO because of how fast it happens in the round.
I posit that the the Round 1 winner, would be better served to replace its actuators, etc as if they were blown, just like the Round 1 losers are doing. This results in a greater probability of reduced failure, by brute force changing of parts that causes a sequence of improvement behaviors that are more effective than doing a once over with a wrench.
this would be akin to why a Nascar pit crew replaces all the tires on a car, whether they need them or not. then entire process of swapping out all the tires and putting lug nuts back on bypasses enough problems, that inspection and simple tightening may miss.
If you doubt my theory, go back and look at the rankings. Virtually ever winner thus far has been the Underdog team that lost the initial time trials and each one demonstrated teamwork, communication or control issues. Their opponents, aside from suffering from overconfidence all demonstrated good teamwork, communication and control of their bots.
How is it then, that these "losers" eke out victory more than 50% of the time?
I can't find the ranking and tournament tree they show on TV, but it stood out as I watched the fights. I can't say it was "every" fight, but it was obvious enough that the show would comment how the underdogs were coming out on top in previous fights.
the Losers-win paradox was also strongest in the first match, where nobody knew what to do, so they had less to expect that if you don't see anything wrong on your bot, that doesn't mean he's OK. The winners of round 1 were almost always looking at "very little" damage on their bot. They were also the higher ranked team in their match.
think of it this way. Let's say each Actuator has a 2:30 mean time to failure in a fight. Some die early, some die late. But either way, the regular shocks to the entire bot and direct hits cause it to average out to an eventual death.
So in round 1, the top-ranked team wins as expected. The underdog took more hits, reducing that 2:30 lifespan meaning, they blow an actuator near the end of Round 1. Break happens, and the underdog races to repair the obvious damage.
The top-team looks at their bot. Looks fine. Tighten up a few bolts, because we all saw what happened in the first match, where the leading team blew actuators out right away in Round 2. Either way, they don't see anything obvious to fix, to there's a limit to what they'll be doing. They don't know that their actuator has about 30 seconds of fighting life in it.
So, Round 2 starts and the underdog scores a few hits. Boom, that 30-seconds-left actuator goes out on the lead-team. meanwhile, the underdog's actuators still have about 2 minutes of fight time on them. So the lead-team now has 1:30 left to fight with one arm. Nevermind that their other arm's actuator is equally stressed and due to blow out any moment now. Before you know it, splat, there it goes, and the underdog wins with a TKO with 30 seconds or so on the clock for Round 2.
Is there more to it than this, for this pattern. Probably. But it is a contributing factor to the unlikely pattern than defective teams are beating effective teams more than half the time.
