Winners of Two Regionals
 

I don't believe that there has ever been a FIRST season where this many teams have won two regionals. Take a look at this list that I've compiled.

66
67
68
69
71
118
126
179
233
245
375
395
1305

Let me know if I missed anyone.

So, why do I think we have so many repeat winners? Well here are a couple factors...

1.) Increased numbers of seeding matches. When a regional has more seeding matches it's a lot harder for a team to get killed by a tough schedule. This ensures that the top teams end up seeding high. Seeding high makes it a lot easier to win.

2.) Strategy. Triple Play is one of the most strategic FIRST games of all time. There are certain teams who just seem to "get it". This is a very repeatable skill. In a year when many robots have similar capabilities, the ability to play smart becomes paramount.

There are probably some more discreet reasons, but I'm still sorting those out.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I think at least two of these teams will make it to the final 12.

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

You forgot a blatantly obvious one: "Triple". There are 3 teams on the field that can win this year, unlike last year, in which only 2 won.

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

3 teams won last year, as alliances had 3 teams on them. 2 on the field, 1 alternate.

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

375 also won 2, NJ, and NYC with us.
-wayne

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

their are certain elements in the game that you must practice and they are very critical. if you practice them and learn them then it would give the team a leg up on the competition. and a big one of those be ahead of the game which is be one step at least ahead of everyone else when strategiesing

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

A lot of these guys don't win two by accident either. I think we're seeing teams take advantage of the new KOP (with the chasis and gearbox) and the smartest teams win. Even look at guys like 237 who made the finals at Rochester and NJ.

I don't know patterns about regional champions going onto winning nationals and stuff, but I think it's safe to say the division champions at nationals are going to have at least 2 regional champions on their alliance with an occasional team like 237 that just had some bad luck or couldn't pull off a win in the finals for whatever reason.

This year's game just seems like if you have it figured out, you have an awsome shot at winning. Teams 126 and 69 didn't win their regionals by luck, they won because they're smart, know how to play the game, and know their robot's limits. I'm certain the same is true for the other multiple regional champions.

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

237 was eliminated in the semis at FLR.

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

My bad, #1 ranked at FLR isn't exactly bad though :o

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

There is some luck involved. Anyway, I think it also has to do with the change in rank determination. Moving away from 3x losers score allows dominating robots (this year the robots with the better end effector) to win their matches, bubble to the top of the ranks, choose good alliances, rinse, and repeat. Also, unlike last year, there is pretty much only one way to win; get that right, and you just may be golden.

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

I believe that one of the main reasons these teams have one two regionals is not just because they have worked hard, but because of their alliances. I know this because we won two regionals because of our great allies. At Colorado team Pink and 935 helped us win and at Lone Star with out the help of High Voltage and 495 there would have been no way our robot could have done what it did to help win it.

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

What about that any team that wins twice has allready not only competed at but won there first regional giving them an incredible advantage over a team attending their first/only regional the secound time around?

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

it is the alliances. more importantly the ability to pick your alliance by ranking teams in the order of witch they will be picked. the first thing to be done is to get with the seed that will work with you best. those two teams then decide there list for the third team. I have been out there on the field picking and every time i know exactly who that first seed will pick and i know exactly who will pick us. and while us first 2 reps of the alliance are up there we have a list of numbers that are in the order of witch we listed as they are getting picked we cross them out when its time for us to chose we use the highest team on the list that isn't crossed out. and that is how it's done. and that list

IS ENTIRELY DEPENDNT ON GOOD SCOUTING

this year it is easy all you need to scout is how many goals a team can cover in a match . there are of course other factors. like if the team will cooperate with the alliance or want to do there own thing. of if they have an alternate ability to defend well.

i Credit our Sucess To Dan. he watches all the web casts from the beginning knows how to Win and catches the matches by looking at the whole field and giving me directive of what to cover and what to stop the other guys from covering. there were allot of matches that would not have been won without his quick thinking directions. there are also matches we lost because i either didn't listen to him or didn't understand him.

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

Good teams put themselves in position to choose or be choosen by other good teams.

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

Winning a regional early on is a huge bonus. We wouldn't have selected swampthing if we didn't see how it performed under pressure and its strategical moves on the Florida webcast. Winning a regional gets your name out there as a good competitor for the years game. I'm glad swamp got screwed by penalties all day long on friday or it wouldn't have been possible. =)

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

It's possible that your 2 out of 12 guess is correct, but don't forget the incredible teams that only had the budget for one regional. The list of double winners would certainly be longer without budget limitations. I think the championships are going to be a lot of fun this year.

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

well yeah but that is not really the piont here it is nice to win 2 regionals but i fyour good and win one it is kind of a good idea it will make less people look at you and possible underestimate you so there could be an advantage there but when we play we don't care we play it as if it were our last but we don't like to kill our opponent also so we have fine lines to go by in that aspect

but i am still really suprised that swamp didn't win first in SC what was that who were the penalties on, them or their alliance teams?

but any way strategy is a very big part which has helped us alot as you can see. here is the big key know your oppenent

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

i t does has some luck with qualification rounds allaince teams that is why you make the best out of what you got and strategies like we have lost a few but we have also won a few that we were the only ones scoring but our alliances did what they were asked to do but it is all based on being smart and stragegy

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

Our first loss was from another strange rule interpretation that you couldn't have any part of your body cross the starting line during autonomous. Tytus pointed at a goal and about 8" of his hand was crossing that line and we drew a 10pt flag. Then we got a loading zone penalty - another 10pts. So those 2 were ours and then our alliance parters both drew (2) 10 pt penalties. So we ended that match with 40pts penalties.

we got our act cleaned up after that but our second loss both of our alliance partners were holding their tetras during autonomous - (2) 10pt penalties and lost by 2 pts

third loss our 2 alliance partners were standing on the wrong pressure pads. They decided to switch pads after autonomous started. So the ref had to either disqualify our alliance or give us (2) 30pt penalties. We got the 30pt penalties - 60pts. In this match we scored 72 pts but not enough to cover 60 pts penalty.

Needless to say we were a little upset. We came back strong after these and capped a minimum of 6 per match from then on out.

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

For 118 there were many factors to why i would justify our sucess at two regionals.

- A good robot. We really hit it hard this year during the build season. We set super hard to reach goals, like building our robot in 3 weeks. Alas we missed it by a few days, but we gave ourselves almost 3 full weeks to test out our bot and find problems with it, train the drivers, make modifications, and figure out it's limitations, all with good time before we had to ship it off. Being able to manipulate the tetras is huge this year, as it's almost the only way to score in the big matches. You can't push a goal around, guard a ramp, or push balls... like in other years, you've got to grab tetras and grab them well. we designed our robot around this and it has proven to be very sucessful.

-Gread Flight team. Lots of driver training, in all situations. Our drivers are well practiced with using just 1 arm, using 2, using sensors, using no sensors, and starting off with the wheels backwards. This all proved useful in the competition as we had some failures, especcially in denver, but our drivers were able to keep calm and adjust to the changing needs on the field. Even when our turret broke during the finals in colorado our drivers were able to adapt and still keep capping. Communication between the upperbody driver and lower body driver and the on field coach was curcial and all three have really gotten along well on the field. The Coach position is very important. Our drivers just focus on the task of getting tetras and placing them, only the coach worries about scores and where to put the tetras. Having each individual do their own task well has led us to be a huge contendor on the field.

-Strategy is huge this year. With one cap you can make a 30 point or more swing of the game, and with teams that can cap in less than 10 seconds, it makes for a huge change in the final seconds. The coach has to know where to put what and when, because the fate of the game can come at the last second. As the on field coach, i've worked hard to make the right calls and this has kept our team winning.

-Scouting. Knowing your opponents is a big deal. Our bot works best when we are alone, so it's curcial that we know ahead of time which robots to stay away from on the other side of the field, and who's mosy likely to charge us. At the same time, we've gotta know what our allies can do so we know whether or not to ask them to cap away, or help body guard us.

-And alliances. Such a huge factor. We've been very lucky at both competitions to have a sucessful alliance in the finals. Every team has there own idea of what they want the other two robots with them to be like, but for us, we've been able to get the type of robots on our side both times which has led us to victory.

I hope to see some exciting matches in Atlanta, and i'm sure there are other factors, but i know that these are the main ones that has lead the robonauts to sucess.

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

Swampthing minimum of 6 tetras is important,

The teams out of the 12 who have won two regionals with a high cap average will most likely be very strong.

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

I am really surpised that no one has mentioned this yet: one of the significant factors leading to an increased number of repeat regional winners is the fact that there are (approximately) the same number of teams but there are more regional events at which to compete than last year (2004 - 26 regionals, 2005 - 30 regionals). This allowed a slightly more uniform distribution of the strong/capable teams throughout the entire set of regional competitions. This would then lead to the expectation that, with all other factors unchanged, there would be a 15% increase in the number of repeat winners between 2004 and 2005. When you then combine it with the other factors that did change (perhaps most significantly, the change from two to three teams per alliance), the increase in repeat winners is not all that surprising.

-dave

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

tytus said it the best...

scouting is EVERYTHING this year more so than the past years... you need to know reliability, spped, pushing power, tetras capped per match, and so many more things...

its just boundless little details that makes the diffrence between a good first pick and an excelent/outstanding/great/etc. first pick which can either make or break your alliance.

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

I agree completely with Tytus, its all about scouting. Friday night the whole drive team and scout team get together and make up a lit for our team, regardless of whether or not we are in the top 8. This helps us find 'sleeper teams.' We did this when we had our alliance pick 122 last year to help win Palmetto.

Their also is a bit of luck involved in being in really good alliances. Their is a big difference between being the last pick of the first round and the first pick of the second (as we found out this year at Palmetto). Some of those teams on that list have just been blessed by the gods a little more than the rest of us (but all of them are great teams). I would love to be the first pick in the secound round at nationals; but our team has a way of being picked by the lower seeds.

Nevertheless congratulations to all of the teams that have won two regionals, and good luck at the nationals.

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

Good drivers and a good robot are only half of what it takes to be the winner,knowing your enemy is the key to victory. Scouts are the other half that make a good team run like a well oiled machine. With knowledge about the speed,power, and staking ability of other robots is a huge advantage in making a strategy. You should also keep an eye on the autonomis modes of a robot so that you can adjust your own to maybe block or score before the opponent dose the same.

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

What if u were finalist allience captian at two regionals ? :D We got screwed twice.

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

A little recap with my own twist...

This game is indeed scouting dependant. SO much so that at the Great Lakes Regional Team 66 decided to write its own program and invest huge amounts of time in scouting and writing the actual program.. From start to finish the program took about 5 hours, and man hours into scouting equals about 72, just for a regional with 42 teams. Our program automatically ranked all 42 teams. 20 of our Top 24 were selected for the finals. 2 of the Top 8 did not even make our list-the "luck" factor of random alliance pairing

Strategy is Critical At the West Michigan Regionals in the finals our alliance (66, 93, 107) were challenged by what was viewed by many as a stronger alliance. However, with three separate strategies in three separate matches (saving the best for last of course) our alliance was able to keep them guessing, and come out on top. So yes, it is possible for the "little guy" to come out on top.

The game changes Team 66 won two regionals (side note, only 2 GM teams won 2 regionals each, and they are also all from the wining alliance at GLR 66, 67, 68-I also believe each of us has won at least one other award, 67 winning the WMR Chairman's Award). The strategy from the Great Lakes Regional was vastly different from the Srategies we used with our alliance partnersd at the West Michigan Regionals. The best teams leave their options open until they have gotten to know their opponents. WHich again leads back to the importance of scouting.

Just my $.02

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

I am sorry everyone this message has no pupose for bing on these boards. I sincerly have learned my lesson and will never be ungracioulsy professinal again. :(

Re: Winners of Two Regionals
 

I've taken notice that the teams that win regionals have really good robots capable of winning over and over. The teams that win at two regionals have to have the perfect balance of robot, driver, strategy, and a touch of luck. The teams also have to be extremely determined. It will be interesting to see these teams preform at nationals, hopefully we will see some good matches between them.