Want to Win at Kaggle? Pay Attention to Your Ensembles.

The Kaggle competitions are like formula racing for data science. Winners edge out competitors at the fourth decimal place and like Formula 1 race cars, not many of us would mistake them for daily drivers. The amount of time devoted and the sometimes extreme techniques wouldn't be appropriate in a data science production environment, but like paddle shifters and exotic suspensions, some of those improvement find their way into day-to-day life. Ensembles, or teams of predictive models working together, have been the core strategy for winning at Kaggle. They've been around for a long time but they are getting better.