Re: Most Competitive Regional
 

It's one thing to argue your point that competitiveness does not matter, but it's totally absurd to imply that teams in the midwest are out to win at all costs and do not care about their fellow competitors. You've made the general accusation, care to publically back it up with team numbers? If not, don't imply that we're all snooty, aloof, and unfriendly.

Have you been to a regional in the midwest? Do you know how much we cooperate and help each other out? Have you seen how many veteran teams reach out to rookies and other veterans in need? A competitive robot does not mean a team does not help other teams. I'd argue the opposite. They're the teams that have the most experience & expertise at building high caliber robots and are anxious to share their talents with others. My team has members who will slave over a fellow competitor's robot the whole day while other members of my team slave over our own. Just because you see teams working like mad on their own robot does not mean the team does not reach out to others and offer assistance.

Maybe instead of assuming that all the midwest teams fit into pre-defined notions you should come talk to us and give us a chance to prove the stereotypes wrong.

Re: Most Competitive Regional
 

okay .. my opinion is going to be biased seeing as i have only been to the canadian regional last year and nationals last year as well .. but i think that the canadian regional will be the most competitive, not solely because of the amount of team and the two playing fields ( though that is a major factor), but because a lot of the teams competing are rookie teams and we are looking to make a name for ourselves ( i know my team has been coming up with ways to make us stand out and memorable ) .. i think that the pits will be more crowded but there will still be a lot of interaction between the teams and a lot of gracious professionalism shown ...

whether it will turn out to be the most competitive or not ..we will just have to see ... but it is surely going to be a lot of fun ... especially with the thursday being april fools day !!

Re: Most Competitive Regional
 

Without getting upset I have to agree with Mike. I have attended Pittsburgh and West Michigan last year as a mentor and announcer. When at each event, I found teams in dire need of help. It didn't matter what team I approached with a problem to help other teams EACH and EVERYONE of them sent at least 2 team members over to see what could be done to help. At West Michigan our team had problems and we needed some parts. There was an abundance of teams willing to share parts and time. I have only been in FIRST for 3 years (2 as mentor) but it doesn't matter what teams I come in contact with, everyone wants to help others. At the Cleveland Regional the 1 year I started with FIRST I went as an observer. Never having seen a FIRST event I really didn't know what to expect. After walking through the pits and being approached by team members to talk about their robots , I got hooked. I saw so much co-operation and desire to help each other COMBINED with a real competitive event I told the people I was with I HAD to join a team. This all stemmed from being at a mid-western event.

I believe that some teams seem to carry an attitude. Last yeam I visited Team Hammond and Team Hot in the pits and got a sense that I was not wanted around. HOWEVER I went back at the end of the day and spoke again with both these teams. I came away with a totally different picture. I recieved a lot of good pointers as well as I found out that when I visited there were problems that were being worked on.

My advice, Don't go on first impressions and secondly YOU have to make the effort to get to know other teams. FIRST is a great place to be. Everyone is different and that's what makes FIRST so great. As for the most competitive regional I still say that depends where you are and the teams you face. HURRY UP SATURDAY !!!!!!!!! :cool:

Re: Most Competitive Regional
 

If this were football or basketball or baseball then it'd be easy to say which teams dominate what regionals but the competition in FIRST changes from year to year. New teams are formed and old teams are dissolved. Students and mentors come and go.
Thus there is no such thing as "the most competitive regional."

Re: Most Competitive Regional
 

While I have never been to a Midwestern Regional, the BeachBots did send a delegation to IRI in 2002. We sent a "minimal team" and therefore did not have the luxury of having several of our mentors with us. Wouldn't you know, the areas we were short were the areas where we had problems. WildStang in particular but also Team Hammond and others worked with us to try and resolve the problems we were having. We never did get them fixed, but we had a good time anyway. We might have gotten the problems fixed if we had people there who could answer the questions their experts were asking.

I can't say that the Midwest teams are more helpful than anybody else, that would be an incredibly high standard to reach. But they are at least as helpful as any other group of teams and certainly more so than some, based on personal experience. I still haven't figured out anything more they could have done to help us. It was rather humbling to have to be on the recieving end of that help for once.

BTW we never did resolve the source of those problems. When we got it back home the robot behaved and has ever since. We suspect it might have been due to damaged batteries and or batteries with a marginal charge. Unfortunately we had a unique battery/main breaker configuration and couln't swap batteries with other teams easily to test whether that was the problem or not. We have added a "standard requirement" that we be able to use "stock" batteries in all future robots as a result.

Re: Most Competitive Regional
 

actually it depends on what part of the competion you focus on(we all know everyone is entersted in winning overall i mean like rookie all star and such......). i think that the Lone Star Regional is the most competitive rookie regional. there are i think like 12 rookie teams at our regional and all are goood teams so far. i also have evidence in the fact that the rookie all star that won nats. rookie all star last year came from LSR.

Re: Most Competitive Regional
 

most competitive regional is where TJ goes... hahaha just kidding.... But I don't know this is a tough question... I think though the Canadian Regional with like 80 teams going... I wish wwe could go there...

?!?!?
 

where did I say anything about ALL the midwest teams?

I've been to regionals at Rutgers, Philly, Cleveland, Toronto and Ive been to the championship a couple times.

There are teams Ive encountered from the midwest that come across as snooty, and somewhat arrogant - usually its teams that are well funded, sending the bot to a regional EVERY week, pouring tons of money into their machines, and its obvious that a great deal of the work on the machine was professionally done, not done by the students

I am talking about the students on the teams, not the mentors. Maybe the kids on those teams were frustrated. Maybe they equate the amount of money spent on their team and bot with 'superiour'

I have also observed that teams on which the students have done most or sometimes all of the work on the bot, they have a better understanding of what it takes to build a machine, and they tend to be more humble and understanding with other teams - that type of hands on experience teaches you humility quickly, not arrogance.

Why get upset with me for observing that some teams act snooty and arrogant. Go back and read this thread - the teams doing the most boasting, and attempting to back up those boast with illogical rational ARE in the same area.

Detroit doesnt hold a monopoly on anything. Maybe 50 years ago, but not now - there are outstanding engineering businesses and sponsors all around the world, and outstanding FIRST teams at all regionals.

To be an sucessful engineer the first thing you have to lose is your ego.

I didnt say they were, I asked if I misunderstood the question (what they mean by 'competitive') and if they meant agressive instead of friendly - I didnt say all the midwest teams are not helpfull

I said some of them have an attitude. You can help another team and still be stuck on yourself. In fact, this is something you have to be VERY carefull of when helping another team, that you are doing so with a cooperative and compassionate spirit, not 'showing' them how much better you are by fixing their bot for them.

Re: Most Competitive Regional
 

As a transplanted Ohioian (Go Bucks!) I would like to invite you to the Arizona Regional where a little known team from Kingman (60) who is sponsored by Ford and another little known team the "Gila Monsters" (64) who are sponsored by GM, not to mention several great California teams, and numerous NASA sponsored teams will slug it out this year. Besides, the weather is nicer in Phoenix in March.

Ken Loyd
Team 64

Re: Most Competitive Regional
 

Ok here is my predicions on the hardest regionals to win (as far as the east coast goes I have no ideas having not been out to the west in years as to how intense the west ones are)
1.VCU Regional-has always been a hard one to win b/c of the fact it's one of the first ones and one of the largest I'd say.
2. Palmetto State- has many "older teams" that will have already been to at least one other regional and at least 11 of the teams have a track record that says they can build kick butt robots consistently. :cool:

Re: Most Competitive Regional
 

NH by far :ahh: will always be the most competitive regional, formaly UTC but all of the good teams shifted to NH last year and stayed this year! :D

Re: Most Competitive Regional
 

Competetiveness in NJ:

My advisor's team (my team) having to face, and eventually eliminate, my advisor's son's team, and our rookie team, in the semi-finals.

Re: Most Competitive Regional
 

This seems to be one of those ("this is the thread that never ends") threads....

You know, no matter how much we go back and forth on it, there's not going to be a clear-cut answer. Yes, there are some regionals that may be harder than others, but noone can say for sure that X Regional is better than all the others. You can't go by number of years a regional has been around...because newer regionals that crop up in areas with an older regional split up the area teams....which theoretically cuts the competitiveness.

My main point, though, is that this is also basically because none of us actually go to all the regionals (if you do, let me know so that I can shake your hand)....and you can't make a statement about which is most competitive unless you go to all of them. And even then, you'd only be one voice....you'd need a small group going to each regional and then voting afterwards on a series of points that relate to actual competitiveness, since not all of the people are going to look at everything.

I still stand by my point that taking an average age of competing teams at each regional will give you an experience score and thus show you which regional has the oldest teams at it, but whether that is a true statement of competitiveness is hard to say.

I also think we've beaten this subject to death, but that's just me.

Re: Most Competitive Regional
 

Ok.