Some Stats

[fromalabama]

I've been recording my times for the last 500 puzzles in each category to see if I'm improving or if I have reach a plateau. While that's probably of no interest to anyone else, some people might be interested to know what the average numbers for the record times are for the various puzzle sizes. So, here they are:

Size 3x4
Mean: 30.38 s (standard deviation 1.47 s)
Mode: 30 s (what a shock!)
Median: 30 s (also a stunner)

Size 3x5
Mean: 40.90 s (s.d. 7.81 s)
Mode: 35 s
Median: 38 s

Size 4x4
Mean: 56.46 s (s.d. 10.01 s)
Mode: 50 s
Median: 52 s

Size 4x5
Mean: 79.83 s (s.d. 13.19)
Mode: 70 s
Median: 74 s

Size 4x6
Mean: 122.11 s (s.d. 23.36)
Mode: 98 s
Median: 116 s

Size 4x7
Mean: 141.75 (s.d. 20.53)
Mode: 120 s
Median: 136.5

I thought it was interesting that the modes for the 4x7s, 4x5s, 4x4s, and 3x4s are the minimum times, but that it isn't true for the 3x5s (which seems to be 34 s minimum) or 4x6s (which seems to be 96 s). I also thought it intriguing that the standard deviation for 4x7s was smaller than for 4x6s.
If anyone is interested in other statistical information about this data set please feel free to ask. One caveat about the data, though, is that an unequal number of entries in each category are duplicated because I was assigned the same puzzle more than once. I don't think such duplicates account for more than 1% of any category, so the bias is likely to be insignificant, but still worth mentioning.

[trexinspecs]

Interesting! Thank you for sharing. You've inspired me to track my own (mediocre) results.

I am curious about whether you're improving, if you're inclined to share. No pressure, of course! I'm still at that stage where my results are very inconsistent, though much better than when I first started (when I was consistently very slow).

[fromalabama]

I'm improving very slightly on the larger puzzles (4x7, 4x6), my average times were a few seconds shorter at the end of the sample than at the beginning (but considerably better than I was doing a couple years ago). For the other sizes I've basically plateaued; I still hit record times occasionally but I'm also more likely to make an error in haste on those sizes, which hurts the average. Like you, my results are still frequently inconsistent though. Some days are better than others, but some puzzles are just naturally challenging to go fast on, so I don't think our inconsistency is entirely our fault.