Predictions Championship 2015: Carver
 

Tips:
Two of the better landfill teams from Florida picked up wins in the buckeye state after striking out closer to home. 233 had their traditional slow start, missing the eliminations entirely at the Georgia Southern Classic event, but reached the finals at Alamo and then captured gold at Queen City. 1592 was the top selection at Ft. Lauderdale and the third pick in Orlando, but couldn't escape the semi-finals until they were the top selection at Buckeye. While more gold may be a stretch, both teams should be elimination contenders in St. Louis.

The Hawaiian Kids are rarely flashy, but they've now won ten of their past eleven regionals and picked up triple victories two seasons in a row. There was plenty of drama for them in the finals this season, though. Their first two events both had finals sets that went to three matches, and 359 was engaged in one of the most notorious can battles of the season with 610 in Hawaii. While the red card against the Coyotes didn't flip the result of finals match 1, it serves to demonstrate the perils of racing for the center cans, as 359 sat all of that match disabled after the initial tangling. While 359 can compete in all phases of the game, they're going to need to step up their play if they want to match their Vex teams' success and complete their first journey to Einstein.

In recent years a slew of Ontario teams have had breakout seasons. 2015 was 2852's turn. They won GTRE alongside OP Robotics and earned the top selection the next week at Tech Valley. Their extendable arm won't fare quite as efficiently at stealing the center cans against the quicker hook designs, but it should enable them to get plenty of additional cans during qualifications. High Voltage should be playing in the elimination tournament in their first visit to Champs.

Few teams have as ambitious design as 971. When operating at full capacity, Spartan Robotics can go head-to-head with almost any other team in FRC. Most notably, they have already gone against high speed can grabbers in the Silicon Valley and Sacramento. However, the damage to their canburglars during the SVR finals serves as another example of the perils of the "rush" portion of Recycle Rush. If they can keep their machine running at top notch, 971 could wind up on one of the top alliances.

D'Penguineers frequently take an event or two to get their machine fully functional, and 2015 was no different. 1717 more than doubled their QA from Los Angeles at Ventura, and ended up walking away victorious. D'Penguineers are once again a smooth swerving machine, and use it to their advantage while mining the landfill. They'll have stiff competition to be the best midfield scoring machine in this division, but if they can continue to refine and improve their machine, it's not out of the question.

Dark Horse:
It had been a while since 1024's last victory in 2009, but the Kil-A-Bytes put together a strong season with victories in Purdue and ISC as well as a finalist appearance at their home event in Indianapolis. While it doesn't quite stack up with their 3 regional victories and trip to Einstein in 2008, 2015 has certainly been a year to remember for 1024 so far, and they hope to enhance it further on Carver. They were picked first at their final two events largely because of their canburglars, though they can stack well from the human player as well. While they aren't blazing fast, they acquire the center two cans in autonomous. What truly sets them apart is how they set those cans down, upright. This makes them a very attractive partner to teams that can't handle toppled cans, even if they might lose one of their cans to a quicker burglar.

Sleeper:
That ONE Team is certainly on the right path, despite being quite a young team. 4967 seeded in the top 3 at both of their district events, reaching the finals at West Michigan, and then captained the third place alliance at Michigan State Championship. Individually they won't outscore any powerhouses, but they know how to play the game well and get the most out of their machine. They're constantly doing something productive, including starting to stack out of the landfill in autonomous if they're not running their 3-tote routine. If their co-op and autonomous abilities don't earn them a captaincy, they could be a great fit as a late selection for an alliance looking for landfill points.


Locks:
The vast majority of top contenders build their stacks and deposit them all at once. 1986 breaks that mold, and proves that success can be found handling fewer totes at a time. Team Titanium builds their stacks in chunks of three, but their versatility more than make up for the lost time. 1986 has a three tote autonomous mode, canburglars, can co-op, can work both the human player and the landfill, and can place on top of existing stacks quite well. This enables them to work in essentially any alliance and still put up productive scores. During their QCR victory run, they had their 3rd partner place three totes and Titanium would place the second three with the noodled can on top to compete the 42-point stacks. This strategic flexibility should both help them rank high and assemble a competitive alliance during alliance selection regardless of who is available.

The hype before their debut was that 368 could play like 1114. While Kika Mana didn't quite reach those expectations, they did walk away with a winners banner from the Hawaii regional. The results at SVR weren't quite as remarkable, but 368 remains one of the teams capable of emptying the landfill of upright totes during a good match. If they can add quick canburglars of their own or pair up with a top notch can thief, then they'll have their best chance at reaching Einstein since they were Curie finalists in 2008.