Re: Is FIRST missing something?
 

One of the things I always thought made FRC so much cooler than any other competition I have ever seen is the mixing of teams from match to match. The team you battled so furiously in th eprevious match is on your alliance. I chuckle at the thought of something like that applied in other sports. Can you imagine how itchy an alliance of Michigan and Ohio State would be in football?

Re: Is FIRST missing something?
 

The point is that our rivalries are different. We have friendly rivalries, teams that we are friends with but we also want to beat for "bragging rights". There's nothing hostile there, it just adds to the fun.

Re: Is FIRST missing something?
 

2054 and 1918 in Michigan at least, Littleboy showed some data I didn't know
"This is all the elimination play between 1918 and 2054 (most recent first)
2012 WMRI Finals - 1918 vs 2054
2012 West Michigan Finals - 1918, 85, 910 vs 2054, 3546, 141 (2054, 3546, 141 wins in 3 matches)
2011 MSC Quarterfinals - 1918, 494, 3539 vs 2054, 910, 2137 (2054, 910, 2137 wins in 3 matches)
2011 West Michigan Finals - 1918, 3357, 27 vs 2054, 67, 107 (1918, 3357, 27 wins in 2 matches)
2010 West Michigan Finals - 1918, 1718, 1896 vs 2054, 3357, 1243 (2054, 3357, 1243 wins in 2 matches)
2009 Lansing District Semifinals - 1918, 494, 470 vs 2054, 2767, 830 (1918, 494, 470 wins in 3 matches)"
Also another encounter that stemmed off to FTC. The Middle School FTC team started by 1918 (6043) had competed against our two teams we started at our middle school (6283 and 5980). The competed against at the "FTC West Michigan Championship" 6043 won i.e. 1918.

When a rival high school in our area started a team (with the help of Andy Baker and Mark Koors) a few of the students joked about wanting to beat us bad but that has just led to the pair of us getting better as we practice together at our field. We hope that the "rivalry" will drive both teams to be better

Re: Is FIRST missing something?
 

Our school, `Iolani, has a rivalry with nearby Punahou, home of team 2090. The schools are academic rivals, sports rivals, they run competing fairs... there's ceaseless ribbing between students at the two.

Team 2090 is probably our closest friend in FRC; in fact, just five hours ago we were at their workshop swapping prototypes. The alliance system has a way of negating enmity like that. In 2011, when they picked us for the elimination rounds, there were a bunch of jokes in the pits about fights within our alliance. Our two teams put a stop to the jokes--by wearing each other's team shirts for the duration of the elimination rounds.

Re: Is FIRST missing something?
 

I've seen some frivalry's between teams from different states around the Midwest. If you're at an out-of-state regional and there are other team's from your state at the same event, you'll see the teams rally together and cheer for their home state team's.

You see this in the Championship Divisions as well. I know that a lot of Wisconsin team's were coming together to watch & cheer on the WI team's in the Division finals this year.

It's also a lot of fun to see teams who have a parent as a mentor on one team vs their son/daughter, who is an alumnus of that team! It's happened a few time's at the Midwest regional before and the announcer's always point it out.

This year in the Northern Lights Regional in Duluth you'll have two alumni (and previous mentors), from FRC 1259 (WI) and FRC 1675 (WI), who are mentors for FRC 3184 (MN). It's the first time the alumni will be playing on a field with their high school teams and current team.

The alumni are looking forward to seeing their high school mentors/families AND there's a chance the lead mentor of FRC 3184 could end up playing with/against his younger brother from FRC 1259. It's going to be an AWESOME regional.

Re: Is FIRST missing something?
 

My old team 1629 actually takes this a step further than not having a rivalry. There are only 2 high schools in the county so while in most sports there's a big rivalry between Northern and Southern, there is only one FRC team so it's a chance for people from both sides of the rivalry to come together, hence the name The Garrett Coalition.

Our team does the same thing. We cover the whole county(5 schools) and 2 of is are die hard rivals but we come together for FRC and are on the same team. Our team color is orange because its not a school color for either of the teams. School rivals not FIRST rivals