TRAVELING TROPHY QUESTION

[FRANKLIN WHALEY]

We have a couple of smaller churches in our area that don't have as many boys as we do. Their boys have heard about our races and wanted to build cars. We decided to do the regular 1st-3rd place trophies for the boys. But we wanted to do a traveling trophy for the winning church to display for a year. My question is how would be the most fair way to determine the winner of this trophy? We use a point system to determine winners, but since we have almost twice as many racers, we wanted some suggestions on how this could be done fairly. Thanks in advance for any comments!

[Stan Pope]

Interesting question! Answer depends on goals, I think.

Some alternatives:
1. Best average.
2. Best average of top N racers.
3. Best average of top racer from each age group.

Here's some analysis:
1. Best average discourages participation by lesser racers. Don't think you want this.
2. Best average of top N racers gives the larger group "more chances" if speedy racers were simply "by chance." But, we know that chance plays a lesser role. I'd choose an "N" that is less than 1/3 the total number from each group. This gets you into the "upper" part of the distribution. I'd avoid making N too small. Awarding based on N=1 singles out the accomplishment of one person, and it should be a "team" award. If the group includes a broad spectrum of skill levels, then the lesser skilled (e.g. younger?) may play less of a role.
3. Best average of top racer from each age group is still a "team" award, but might be difficult to administer if some of the teams lack members in specific age groups. This emphasizes accomplishment at all levels.

I think you can do this with points or times. Points comparison requires that they compete in a single pool.

[FRANKLIN WHALEY]

Here's a little more info! The boys will be 7th-12th grade. Our boys have been building cars since 1st grade. The other boys may have never built a pinewood car. But some of them have built competition robots for their school projects. Our boys have outgrown the traditional age bracket for the race we have. However, they love racing the cars so much, they wanted me to come up with some way for them to keep building cars. These other churches are small and don't have any boys young enough to participate in our regular races. If they did we'd be happy to have them too. The goal is mainly to have fun and fellowship. But let's face it. This is still a race. And the last thing we would want to happen is for the visitors to get discouraged because something didn't seem fair. These boys are bright and I'm sure they are already smarter than me. I just don't want to make it obvious. I was considering using the top six places. Giving the number one car six points, going down to one point for the sixth place car. This would give a wider range of talent a chance to help their team. It would also give a team that didn't have the winning car a chance to take home the (traveling trophy)! Is six places enough or too many?

[Stan Pope]

That works, too ... or you are running "points final standings" competition, you can just add the points of the top few finishers. This gives proportionate weight to individual scores. Also avoids having to break t ties.

Just be sure that there are no more places counted that there are members on each team... and maybe fewer than that, so that they can drop their poorest scores.

You might ask the prospective participants to contribute competition ideas, too. Sounds like they are a bright bunch!

[FRANKLIN WHALEY]

Thanks Stan! I think I'll have the points system in place for the race. But I will get the groups input prior to the race, just to see if they have any better ideas.