The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

So since my other thread is going so well I figured I would make a similar thread for teams who are in a bit of a dry spell in terms of event wins.

So similar rules to the other thread:
1. You must compete with the team fairly regularly
2. The team must have won an Official event prior to 2013
3. The Team can not have won an official event in 2013, 2014, 2015 or 2016
4. Teams must already be signed up to compete in the 2017 season
5. An official event is one that provides a FIRST Blue Banner (Regional, Distict, District Championship, Division, Subdivision, and Championship)
6. They can not be your team or teams.

So lets go with Florida Teams 86 Team Resistance, and 801 Horsepower.

86 has 4 regional wins to their name (Florida 2007, 2009, 2010, and Orlando 2012) and has a history of ranking well. They have a history of performing well and I can see them getting another banner this year.

801's last regional win was 2005 Peachtree but they haven't spent the last decade complacent and have constantly built great machines during their partnership with 1592. Unfortunately though they have got the short end of the stick Blue Banner wise when compared to their twin 1592 (4 Regional Wins during their partnership), that being said 801 is not to be taken lightly they are a perennial contender in Florida and is just looking to add another win to their history.

Honorable Mentions:
21
59

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

Can I say "most of South Carolina" here?

281: Four regional wins, but the last was Palmetto 2012 (which ended with them needing to call in a backup).
342: Indiana people would call them the 461 of the South. Four silvers, one win (Palmetto 2007), masked by four RCA wins, a WFFA, and a Dean's List Finalist. Their last medal of any sort was Palmetto EI in 2012.
2815: Yes, they were my team. Yes, their three regional wins were all as the last pick of the draft or as the backup team to 281. But the banner's just as blue, and right up until they ran into the 118/16/3490 buzzsaw at Rocket City this year, it looked like they had the beginnings of a return to form.

Honorable mentions:

343: Before they won the final Peachtree Regional in 2015, they spent a long time lost in the desert. Since their last win at Palmetto 2010--two cities ago--they went on an absolutely ridiculous silver streak. Newton 2012. North Carolina 2011. Palmetto 2011. Peachtree 2012. Palmetto 2012. They then went home completely empty-handed in 2013 and 2014 before returning to the performance level you would expect from Metal In Motion.
1293: Also part of my history, and ineligible for this list because they've never won a regional. Matter of fact, they have somehow eluded any official FIRST hardware since their 2004 inception. Should've had at least a silver at Palmetto 2011, but a bad snap decision from a partner flipped a done-deal semifinal match into a red card.

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

Team 25.

2 Time World Champions (2000, 2012). 2 Time World Finalists (2003, 2006). 2 Additional Championship Division Wins (2002, 2011). 9 Regional wins from 2000 to 2011.

In 2012, they won the Mt. Olive MAR District Event, the MAR District Championship, and the World Championship.

But, they haven't won an event since. The closest they've come is Finalists at the 2014 Hatboro-Horsham MAR District Event, 2016 Birdgewater-Raritan MAR District Event, and 2016 MAR District Championship.

I know Shaun, and he must be hungry for a win. And 2017 is the last year that the "backpack bet" is eligible (If 25 wins Worlds, we get to keep his current backpack and he will buy a transparent one to wear). I want to see an Evil Machine back on Einstein.

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

Team 131 is due for a win soon. Won their last went at GSR 2012, but fell short in the finals twice in 2014 and had solid robots in 2013 and 2016. Even won a chairman's award in 2013.

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

980 has three event wins, none since '08. They've sniffed it a couple of times, picking up silver in 2010 and 2014, but no closer. But lately they've been fielding fairly competitive robots, after a bit of a dry spell, so I'd be looking out for them in 2017 and 2018.

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

In Washington, the first team that comes to mind is 2557 SOTAbots. They won the Seattle Olympic Regional in 2012, then...a lot of finalist appearances. Solid robots year in and year out and making playoffs at every event except 2015 DCMP, just never quite getting the gold.

2013 - Finalists at Central Washington Regional, the heartbreaker where they were announced as winners of the rubber match on tiebreakers before the decision was reversed due to a missed red frisbee in the 2pt goal.

2014 - Finalists at Auburn Mountainview, taking their timeout for their opponents to fix a robot before the 3rd match, then getting beaten. Followed that up with a finalists appearance at Eastern Washington, losing in 3 matches.

2015 - Finalists at West Valley once again going the distance to the rubber match but coming up short.

2016 - The finalist streak stays alive, this time going to the division finals on Curie with the #7 seed alliance. They lost in 2 matches by a combined 3 points.

With such a solid resume and getting so close (how many times can you go to 3 matches in the finals and not get the breaks?) I just have to feel like it's their turn.

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

I actually looked at 281's TBA page, and would have mentioned them on the other thread had they not won a regional before.

But the team I would put at the top for needing another win is 1311, Kell Robotics. They have 8 Regional and District Chairman's Awards, 3 Dean's List Finalists and 1 Dean's List winner, a Woodie Flowers Finalist, 2 Entrepreneurship Awards, a Safety Award, and Industrial Design Award, 2 Judge's awards, a Gracious Professionalism award, a Volunteer of the Year, a Creativity award, and possibly the most unique climbing mechanism of 2013. They won the 2012 North Carolina Regional.

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

When your team becomes ubiquitous with the phase "Always a bridesmaid, never the bride"

#Just461Things

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

This answer is slightly off topic.

Ever since I can remember, 27 and 33 have been amazing teams and competed at the top level in Michigan. However, during my high school years from 2007 to 2010 they were both on improbably long dry spells in terms of event wins. 33's last event win was in 2005 and 27's was in 2003 - which seemed like ages ago considering how often these teams would make the finals. Both of them were able to break their dry spells by beating my alma mater Team 67 in 2011. Since then, both teams have captained a winning alliance at MSC.

33 should have won an event in 2010. From the District Events through worlds their average seed was between 2 and 3. They only missed Finals once, making SFs at MSC.

27's 2008 robot was amazing and could have easily won the Detroit or Great Lakes Regional with slightly different seeding.

That's all I got. These two were fantastic teams. Performed at Worlds every year like they had won several events already.

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

and a great fun team to work with and just be around.

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned 1902. Division finalists 2006, einstein 2007, several finalist performances at regionals, and regional wins in 2009 and 2010.

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

I would have but 1902 won 2013 South Florida so they don't qualify based on the rules I said above.

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

176 Aces High.

Since they began in 1996:

• Finalists at six regionals and two districts.
  
• Winners at five regionals.
  
• Finished as finalists on Newton in 2004 & 2006.
  
• Won the Championship in 1999.

They've made it to the finals four times since their last win at the Granite State Regional in 2011 (Montreal 2012, Pine Tree 2013, UNH 2014, Rhode Island 2015) and typically finish seeded in the top five at their events.

176 is long, long overdue.

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

Wait has 461 really not won an event? If not, they should definitely be counted as one of the top contenders for this. They consistently have one of the top performers in FIRST or at least in Indiana.

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

I think 461 is leading the pack in this thread.

This thread is a spinoff to discuss teams who are overdue since their last win prior to 2013.

If 2014 was the cutoff I'd tip my hat to 2648 Infinite Loop.

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

In Minnesota, 1816 is probably the most overdue for another win. They haven't won an event since 2006, despite having won an incredible array of awards since then. They have also been regional finalists thrice, in 2009, 2012, and 2014

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

I think 280 TNT would be in the running, but I believe 461 has more finalists which I would argue edges them in this case.

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

Definitely team 60 from Arizona! They have been a finalist 5 times in the last 4 years and haven't won the gold since 2011. It's honestly not a matter of if they will win again but when and I think that could be any event they attend. Especially with the drive the current team seems to have as noticed in the recent AZ State champs where they came in with a clone of 987's robot! It didn't perform at 987's level but the effort and potential was definitely there in my opinion.

Though not an official FRC event, team 60 did win the AZ State Championships in 2015!

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

For Texas, my absolute "never ever had a win but needs one" pick would be 2881, a Girl Scout team in Austin that has consistently good robots, an awesome image, and all around great people.

A close runner up would be 2587, the DiscoBots in Houston. They haven't had a win since 2009, and they are a consistent finalist who for one reason or another (including 118, 148, 624, and 1477 or some combination thereof) just couldn't quite get the blue banner for the better part of a decade.

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

It got so bad on 40 that every time Thunderstruck played someone would shout out "Sounds like second place!"

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

From the NC District, I would say HOTBOTZ, 2640. They haven't won an event since the Palmetto Regional in 2012. However, they seem fairly consistent and did well in 2016, being semifinalists at Guilford County and quarterfinalists at UNC Asheville as well as NC DCMP.

I haven't followed them that closely, but 435 seems good. They are the oldest team in the NC District, and last won in 2013. Their 2016 robot had a cool design. (If anyone who knows is reading this, were those hoses actually functional or just for aesthetics? Either way, they looked great!)

I'll post again if I come up with more...

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

I think for California, 696 is an obvious answer to this question:

They last won an event in 2007 at San Diego, but they've won a whole list of other awards since--3 quality, 3 industrial design, 1 excellence in engineering, 1 innovation in control, 1 gracious professionalism, and 1 WFFA, in addition to making finals at IE 2013. They've also been a captain/first pick at every event since 2011, attended IRI in 2013, and build beautiful machines every year. They're also really nice people and always willing to answer questions every time I've talked to them.

(also according to my friends I'm obsessed with symmetrical / powdercoated / color coordinated robots as well as palindrome numbers, so it's hard to get much better than 696)

Other strong contenders:

649: won SVR in 2010, and have made finals at SVR again in 2015 but haven't managed to get another win, despite putting up strong robots each year. In 2016 alone they made semis at both CVR and SVR, won excellence in engineering and imagery, and were finalists at Calgames.

3256: they won Sac their rookie year (2010), then made finals at Sac and SVR 2012. Despite winning Calgames 2015, they haven't been able to win another official event, although they have gotten an impressive number of other awards since their last win: RCA x2, EI x1, dean's list x3, WFFA x1, industrial safety x4, entrepreneurship x4 (including 3 in one year), and finalists x2.



I'm probably missing teams, and I'll come back and add them when I think of more. For norcal in particular, there have been very few unique teams winning regionals, although there is an increasing number of teams challenging that.

In the past 4 years, there have been 3 norcal events per year, coming to 12 events or 36 slots on winning alliances--but there have only been 19 different teams. On captain/1st pick slots it's even more drastic: 8 teams vs 24 slots, and for captain/1st picks for the past 3 years, it's 5 vs 18.

Put another way: from 2013 on, there has only been 1 norcal event that didn't have either 1678 or 254 on the winning alliance. From 2014, that number is zero. They make up for 16 of the 24 winning captains/1st picks since 2013, 14 of 18 from 2014 on. This data graphed (with multiple winners colored):



(they'd probably also say I'm obsessed with streaks. But seriously, this is crazy)


*All stats are for official events only
*The 8 capt/1st pick winners (team (# wins at norcal regionals)) are 1678 (9), 254 (7), 971 (2), 118 (2), 973 (1), 840 (1), 2489 (1), and 3189 (1). The first 5 are winners from 2014-16.

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

Forgot about those guys (actually, I think I remembered, then sat down to write my last post and forgot).

I'd have to go tossup between 980 and 696: 980 has more wins (and finalists), and more recent, but generally builds something tough and scrappy, playing a lot of defense. 696 has more elegant machines and plays a lot of offense. Now if they could just team up together with another good offense robot...

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

I would agree that we're desperately in need of a win! :P Hopefully this year. Gunning for it hard.

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

Thanks for the shoutout Rachel, its a great boost to our efforts aside from being a wonderful compliment.

Team 696 is working very diligently this year, perhaps more than ever, to bring home a win. A decade is a long time, and our students are determined to change this.

Good list. I think you're missing one team: 1868 :P.

You guys build great looking and performing robots every year and have come so close in the past (2012 and 2013) - not to mention all the outreach and work with the community.

Here's hoping you win one in 2017!

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

103 The Cybersonics

They've been to the regional/district finals 10 times in their history. They won the first six regional finals (up to the 2008 New Jersey regional). They've lost the last four (since 2008 Philadelphia). That finals losing streak stretches to 5 if you count the 2011 Curie finals (they also lost the 2003 Curie finals).

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

In New York- 1511 hasn't won an event since 2013 Boston, despite building some excellent machines, and winning a number of well-deserved Chairmans and EI awards.

191 hasn't won an event since FLR 2012.
1551 hasn't won an event since FLR 2010.
3003 hasn't won an event since FLR 2013.

All four teams have had some good robots since then. Part of 191's problem is that they only attend one regional (and the championship).

There are a lot of good, deserving teams in Rochester that win infrequently because of how much parity there this in the area.

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

For Colorado, definitely 662. They haven't won a regional since 2004, but have consistently built strong and capable robots that appear in the playoffs since then. I hope to see them win a regional sometime soon.

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

They won Curie in 2016

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

You're correct. I forgot, since they've been on a regional drought.

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

We gave serious consideration to bypassing Super Regional North and going to a second regional but we'll stick with the norm this year.

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

That sad moment when you realize that unless Ed attends both Champs he won't be at yours :(

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

It is sad, isn't it?

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

We got close last year at Toronto but came up a little short against an awesome alliance.

One day it would be nice to win FLR since we have never done that!

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

FLR is a tough regional to win. Who knows what would have happened after quarterfinals if it weren't for that unfortunate red card?

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

I know this is off topic but I just went back and watched that match, what was the red card for?

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

Good question :rolleyes:

I believe it was on 3015 for flipping 2010. It was a bit of a controversial call, and I can remember some individuals on some of the teams being very riled up about it.

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

It was 3015 flipping 2010 over.

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

I would have been, 3015 and 2010 met bumper to bumper once 2010 was clearly going vertical 3015 backed off. 2010 wound up completely flipped due to their own actions and was given the 10 second grace period to try to right themselves.

I don't see a G24 here but it was up to the head ref and if thats what he saw he has a better view then I do on that video.

Re: The Best Team(s) in need of an event win/
 

Generally the referees at upstate NY events are fantastic and relaxed. That was very much a judgement call, and unfortunately it fell against 1511 and 3015 in that case.

Their opponents, 578, haven't won an event since 2001, despite having some close calls and some fairly competitive machines in that span of time, including being finalists at the 2016 NYC Regional.