What Is the best FIRST state.
 

According to you what state is the best state for robotics. This could be this year, last year or in the history of first.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Michigan is the best state. Detriot is the capital of FIRST.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

no california is the best state.....what alliance won nationals beach bots a cali team.......... :)

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

With two Michigan teams. One which one the most prestigious award as well, the Chairman's Award. I stand by my statement.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

I don't know so much that there is a "best" state in FIRST. Just from hearing my out-of-state friends' experiences at various regionals and watching the competition at Championships, I was very impressed at the levels of engineering, promotions, communications, and team spirit that all of the robots and teams possessed - this year especially.

While statistics may show one state to surpass the others in certain aspects, I think that each of the states had something very unique to present to FIRST, and that without such uniqueness, the competition wouldn't be possible.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Indiana, hands down. Sorry Michigan and California. :)

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

State of independence seems to match FIRST pretty darn well.

From an offspring to the MIT 2.07 competition to the multi-national beast it is now.. It truely now has it's own state of being.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

While Indy has the ledgendary team 71 Team Hammond and the best known off season competition IRI for overall quality Michigan has produced numerous champions and Chairman's award winners. It's the heart of FIRST.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Provinces own all States .. no competition .. and Ontario is the best province ... ...

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Another vote for Michigan! Many Championship and Chairman's teams over the years, lots of major sponsors, and three regionals (I would go look up how many the other states have but the FIRST site is down).

Also, would anyone know how to come up with some statistic on percentage of CDer's from various states/provinces/countries? They track all kinds of other stuff.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

New Yawk and Cali have three regionals.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

I have to say Michigan, look at how many division winners there were this year.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

111 is from Illinios.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

INDIANA - without a doubt.

The worlds best rookie regional (Boilermaker).
Purdue University.
The Indiana Robotics Invitational.
More and More new teams.
Home to two Championship WFA winners.
Home of the 2007 Championship.

What more is there to say. :)

Do you have any difficult questions?.....

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

I gotta go with Jack on this one, Michgan is the BEST FIRST state. (Your avatar is a little better now)!!!

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Don't forget that Indiana has pulled this off with 1/5th as many teams as Michigan has...

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

If we look at it by national championships, Michigan wins, followed by Indiana and California.

Michigan - 8.5
California - 5
Indiana - 5
Ohio - 2.5
Connecticut - 2
Massachusetts - 2
New Jersey - 1
Delaware - 1
Illinois - 1
New York - 1
Texas - 1

If you look at it by alliance captains (and pre '99 champions), Indiana is the winner, followed by California then Connecticut. Note that a Michigan team has never been the alliance captain of the national championship alliance.

Indiana - 4
California - 3
Connecticut - 2
Illinois - 1
Massachusetts - 1
New York - 1
Ohio - 1
Texas - 1

Needless to say, I'd say Indiana or Michigan can easily claim to be the best, based on national championships, with California coming in 3rd.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

I am gonna give a few more reasons for Indiana, specific to opportunities. I'm not saying other states don't have these, I'm just saying they're amazingly plentiful in Indiana.

1) Spectacular rookie regional, growing more next year
This regional was organized by a team of college students and professors and highschool teachers, not by a company. It was tailored to students' interests and needs and had multiple socials and immense academic opportunities. Huge points for fun, fairness, and organization.

2) Science is a priority
Every state has great job availibility, but go talk to some students doing internships in Indiana. There are so many of them out there, and there are many many opporunities for highschool and college students. Indiana is not just some farm state.

3) Growth of teams
To my knowledge there is not yet outsourcing going on with Indiana teams. Why is that? Because so many companies want to see good students stay in state, and help in the future. There are many many upcoming teams from Indiana, so just you watch!

;) I live here. We give good hugs.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

*brain fart*Ooopsss, should have known better, I'm wearing their shirt now! Sorry ed! *brain fart*

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Well if you look at Chairman Award winners by state it goes something like this:

Michigan-2 (67,47)
California-2 (22,254)
Ohio-2 (120,144)
Pennsylvania-1 (103)
Connecticut-1 (175)
Arkansas-1 (16)
Massachusetts-1 (23)
New Hampshire-1 (151)
New York-1 (191)

Please correct me if any of these are wrong. It still doesn't say the best state, I'm just giving some info.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

woooo. Somebody open a window. WHOA! :p

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Unfortunately I do not think that you can judge the best state by the Chairman's Award winners. Reason I say this is cuz different judges, different regionals, different things they look for. While it is a prestigious award, I don't necessarily think it's a good parameter to look at.
But in saying that, I don't know what exactly are the good parameters to base the BEST state out there... perhaps there needs to be more to the question of which state is best for FIRST to give basis for an answer.

But, I'll go ahead and agree with IN for all the previous reasons mentioned.. :)
Indiana is looking at potentially 6-7 new rookie teams next year. That's pretty awesome. BMR was awesome rookie regional, only to become more awesome next year. IRI is always awesome. Team 71 has a record for championship wins....45 has been around since the beginning.. And we just have a huge group of awesome teams, who always come together and support each other when in need.
I'm surprised there aren't more states chiming in here!!! :p

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

OK, not even going to comment on my other post, cause apparently no one found it amusing..

BUT - All states that have FIRST teams in them are the coolest..

Do we have all 50 yet?

Canadian Provinces, you rock too for bringing FIRST to an international audience first.

And countries, Brazil, and UK. w00t

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Recently doing the statistics page for the new IndianaFIRST website, I found out that Indiana was even more successful than I thought.

15 Regional Wins
13 Regional Finalists
(28 robots have been in regional finals, total)
8 Championship Division Finalists
8 Rookie All-Star Awards
7 Xerox Creativity Awards
7 KPC&B Entrepreneurship Awards
7 Leadership in Control (11 if you add the Innovation in Control Award)
7 Judges' Awards
6 GM Industrial Design Awards
5 Regional Chairman's Awards
5 National Championships
4 Woodie Flowers Award Winners (Bill Beatty, Andy Baker, Darrell Noble, Scott Ritchie)
4 Unsung FIRST Heroes Awards (Scott & Libby Ritchie, Chris Fultz, Steve Florence)

... and the list goes on and on. Here's the breakdown of the 158 awards (not including UFH) that have been won by Indiana teams:

2005: 36
2004: 25
2003: 23
2002: 13
2001: 28
2000: 8
1999: 7
1998: 7
1997: 5
1996: 1
1995: 1

I don't have a personal vote on this issue, but I thought the stats were interesting. All that information is from FIRST's website. I'd like to see Michigan's match up, but I don't have the patience (I barely did Indiana while staying sane). Anyone up for it?

/edit: It's also been brought to my attention that I should clarify. This only had included current Indiana teams. I have now included the awards of the now-defunct teams 535 and 24. There were also former teams 377, 472, and 1475 that never had awards.

I <3 corn, driving in circles, and tattooing pigs,
Amanda Morrison

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Wait a minute-

which state is kickoff held in?
Which state is home to FIRST?
Which state is home to Deans hair?
Which state had a big face made out of rock that fell down and is still on all the license plates??

Thats right.

New Hampshire.

-Andy A.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

I second New Hampshire...
really where would FIRST be without Dean? thats right nowhere...so therefore, the home of FIRST Place, Dean Kamen, and license plates with landmarks that arent there anymore would have to win.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Although not as publicized as Michigan, Indiana and Calfornia, we have something very special going on up here in Ontario. The growth as been unprecidented, take a look at the number of teams each season.

2001: 2
2002: 24
2003: 39
2004: 62

Here are the Ontario award stats

12 Regional Wins
11 Regional Finalists
(18 robots have been in regional finals, total)
0 Championship Division Finalists
11 Rookie All-Star Awards
3 Xerox Creativity Awards
4 KPC&B Entrepreneurship Awards
4 Leadership in Control (11 if you add the Innovation in Control Award)
4 Delphi's Driving Tomorrow's Technology Awards
5 Motorola Quality Awards
10 Judges' Awards
0 GM Industrial Design Awards
5 Regional Chairman's Awards
3 Engineering Inspiration Awards
0 National Championships
3 Woodie Flowers Finalist Award Winners (Roly Anderson, Karthik Kanagasabapathy, Vince Lau)
3 Unsung FIRST Heroes Awards (Mark Breadner, Ian Mackenzie, Karthik Kanagasabapathy)

Here is the breakdown by year:

1998: 1
1999: 0
2000: 0
2001: 1
2002: 9
2003: 15
2004: 16
2005: 29

Not too shabby. I not arrogant or foolish enough to call us the best yet, but give it time, we got something special being brewed up here.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

I was bored, so I made a list of California's accomplishments:

5 National Champions
2 National Finalists
6 National Division Champions
2 National Division Finalists
2 National Chairmans Awards
1 National Engineering Inspiration Award
1 National Rookie Inspiration Award
2 National Number One Seed Awards
2 National Rookie All Stars
5 National Judges Awards
1 National Leadership in Control Award
1 National Autodesk Award for Excellence in Engineering
40 Regional Championships
45 Regional Finalist Awards
9 Regional Chairmans Awards
13 Regional Engineering Inspiration Awards
5 Regional Woodie Flowers Award (Steve Kyramarios, Ted Shinta, Matt Driggs, LeRoy Nelson, Chris Curry)
12 Regional Number One Seed Awards
24 Regional Rookie All Star Awards
11 Regional Xerox Creativity Awards
16 Regional Leadership in Control Awards
10 Regional Motorola Quality Award
26 Regional Judges Awards
19 Regional Sportsmanship Awards
11 Regional Driving Tomorrow’s Technology Awards
11 Regional General Motors Industrial Design Awardss
7 Regional Imagery Awards
8 Regional Entrepreneurship Awards
10 Regional Team Spirit Awards
5 UFH Honorees (Travis Covington, Joe Ross, Wendy Wooten, Ken Leung, Jason Morrella)

That adds up to 337 awards won by CA teams, since the inception of the first team in 1995

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Even if you say that the 105 teams in existence now are the only teams in California's history, that's approx. 3.2 awards per team.

Indiana, with 21 teams this year (25 total in history), with 149 awards (not counting those won by defunct teams) is approx. 7 awards per team.

Shall we also take landmass into account? ;)

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Where was all the awards information found? I want to make a list of stats for Michigan :p I'll be needing it for this year's sponsorship presentation, anyhow

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

All the information was taken from the US map on the FIRST website. I'd like to see how many other states rank up. NY, MI, FL, etc.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Oh, of course *smacks self in head*... Thanks. Michigan will be up sometime early tonight

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

I dont know...out of the 16 people who voiced an opinion about the "best FIRST state", 81% voted for the state/province listed in their personal location.

There's no real answer here. Run all the stats you want, but the point is that there is no best FIRST state. They can not be compared against eachother since there is no equal playing field for them to be compared upon: land mass, industry makeup, taxes/gov't funding, even quality of life factor in. So, until we can agree on a metric to define the point of this post, there's just no way to answer this.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Hmm, if you look at it how I'm looking at it Michigan is in the lead with only a 7 or 7.5 depending on how you look at it with Ohio in fourth with a 2.5-3. See there is this weird thing where the schools from our team are from Ohio, but our sponsor is in Michigan so we are registered as a Michigan team but we sorta swing both ways. Go Ohio? I think I'm in the minority

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

I think by far Michigan is the best. I am not saying that because of what state I am in. If you look at the past four championships who was in the winning alliance? 2002-66 2003-469,65 2004-494 2005-67,503. And as my dad just reminded me...there are only nine teams in the hall of fame and Michigan has one of them. Also where was the team from that created this website? hmmmm Michigan. Now don't get me wrong, Indiana has the legendary Team Hammond and the legendary team 45, and Cali has 330, 254, and many many other great teams, but all in all, Michigan is the state to beat.


Stevie

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Actually there are 13 teams in the Hall of Fame (3 of them are defunct) and there are now 2 Michigan teams (Chiefdelphi and the H.O.T. Team).

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

I didn't make a single statement about the data, I only presented the data :) (For the record, I think IN and MI are both ahead of CA)

Also, for a state with a ton of teams like CA, it was a heck of a lot easier for me to use www.archive.org to look at the FIRST site each year and find awards, rather than going through each team.

CA teams were mostly confined to west coast regionals though, so I didn't have to check every single event page.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Here are the stats for Michigan, subject to editing (seeing that I just copied and pasted each team's data into Word, and did a Find function for each of the awards). Must double-check for discrepancies.

7 National Championships
8 Championship Division Finalists
12 Regional Chairman's Awards
62 Regional Winners
33 Regional Finalists
26 Rookie All-Star Awards
23 Xerox Creativity Awards
0 KPC&B Entrepreneurship Awards
22 Leadership in Control/Innovation in Control Award
42 Judges' Awards
16 GM Industrial Design Awards
19 Delphi's Driving Tomorrow's Technology Awards
29 Motorola Quality Awards
14 Engineering Inspiration Awards
5 Woodie Flowers Award Winners
6 UFH Honorees

I still stand by my statement that I think there are no "best" states, though.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Lisa, hopefully you had the foresight to use archive.org, as I did not (thanks Cory). And at least someone else realizes that Michigan stomps us all. ;)

I find the point of this thread rather amusing. While I can't speak for anyone else that has posted, I can personally say that I had very little ties or pride in my home state, other than the fact that I happened to be born here. FIRST, while encouraging the camraderie between teams, has also seemed to give us that pride in our states and geographic regions. Yet another unnoticed, yet not small, accomplishment. Before I ran the stats for Indiana (which was for IndianaFIRST's new website, not for this thread), I had no idea that the state was that successful. It's certainly given me a resurgence of pride for my state and their success in educational robotics and technology.

While I suppose in some eyes this can be viewed as pompous boasting, especially with no metric defined, I see this simply as pride in accomplishments. Students in the FIRST program should see these statistics not as simple bragging rights, but instead homage to the efforts of the teams that, for many years, strove to further the message of FIRST's core.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

yea team 67 did win both but there is some curse once you win the chairmans you cant win the chapionships. they won the championships then the chairmans. but if the california team hadnt picked the teams from michigan they wouldnt be there. i think michigan is awesome but so is cali.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

We don't get counted twice? :D

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

yeah yeah yeah rub it in lmao. but michigan is still better.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

What about Nebraska, They only undefeated state.

Yeah they have no teams.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

I'd like my state to be the best in everything, but I'm realistic enough to know when we aren't :)

I'd be perfectly happy no matter how many awards my state has won, as long as there are teams to inspire students (and adults!).

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Well with only Three teams, I like RI the Best, honestly who else can say they have met just about every member (maybe with the exception of 5) of every team in the state?? RI definitly has the closest knit group of first teams.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

I'm going to have to say New Hampshire is the best FIRST state...Can anyone guess why?

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

seeing how everybody thinks different about what is the best First state. i know how we can all come to terms with it okay... In Florida we have 179 they are cool right??? yeah i like them lol... but the best First state is FLORDA bc one everybody loves PINK and we got the pink team 233 and second 79 and 179 are cool too. so i think Florida is the best lol. we many not have any champships but thats bc we are saving them so that we can win 10 in row for the next ten years lol j/k. but really all the state are good if you compare robots to robots.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

lol...good one...

and HEY HEY don't forget about S.P.A.M. 180! and of course 312, 168, 108, 1083....so many great Floridan teams...and Florida is great too because we had Nationals @ Epcot :)

this is tooo hard though to say which is the best....

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Jessica, you would make a fine engineer.

***
PS - I have been to every state, except for Alaska, so I think that makes me very qualified to identify the best FIRST state, and I declare it to be Indiana.
***

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

North Carolina has one as well, the 2004 Robodawgs (435). The robodawgs have also captured 13 regional awards (and they've only been around since 2000!), including 2 VCU Chairmans. But 1 team does not make a state.
My vote for best state, Michigan. Why?
Multiple national chairmans, and national titles. This site we're on, a Michigan team made it. The 2nd most teams of any state (93). More division winners this year than any other state. Not one, but TWO champions this year. Oh yeah, and 3 regionals.
California would get the silver. 99 teams, 3 regionals, multiple champs (including this year's alliance captain) and chairmans. And not to mention Team 254, who has won the Silicon Valley Regional every year it's existed...
3rd place, Indiana. 45, 71, 135, 234, and 1024 should be enough evidence. But beyond them, only 1 other team has won a regional competition (and 135 surprisingly hasnt). They do have an abundance of regional chairmans though. IRI is the best off-season, and Boilermaker one of the best regionals.

Other notables:
New York, Florida, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Virginia.

And no, Im not just being biased twoards my state (although some does exist ;) ), Virginia. It has 55 teams (4th most of any state, 5th if you count provinces), and a combined 86 regional awards. Albeit Va. has had very limited success at the championship level. Its one regional already packs in around 60 teams a year, so it wouldn't be surprising to see a 2nd Virginia regional in the near future.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

I'd venture to say they have the best winning record of any team that's been around more than a few years. Losing only three regionals in 6 years, and being finalists in 2 of the 3 is pretty darn impressive.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Isnt it 7 years? :confused:

Still, either way is unbeleivably impressive. They would probably produce the most consistantly competative robots of any team. Either them or 71.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Um yeah... it is 7 years... Senior moment? :rolleyes:

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

ALABAMA
for only 6 teams were doing pretty good

Website Design Award - 3
Regional Champion - 3
Engineering Inspiration Award - 2
KPC&B Entrepreunership - 2
Judge's Award - 2
Regional Chairman's Award - 1
Woodie Flowers Regional Award - 1
Xerox Creativity - 1
Regional Finalist - 1
DaimlerChrysler Team Spirit - 1
Motorola Quality - 1
Imagery - 1
Delphi "Driving Tomorrow's Technology" Award - 1
NAT Division Finalist - Archimedes - 1
Highest Rookie Seed - 1
GM Industrial Design - 1
J&J Sportsmanship - 1
Autodesk Award for Visualization - 1
Leadership in Controls - 1

the northern states have great sponsors to "help" built there robot

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

I think thats a little rude to infer that the northern states have only won their awards through the work of their mentors. You have just now insulted hundreds of teams' hard work and dedication over all the years that they have been involved. In a conversation like this, if you are the underdog in a competition such as best state that you might get a little defensive and think you have done well for some disadvantages you face, but I believe that you must rethink your last remarks.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Since FIRST isn't just about having a good robot, why should we argue about what the best state is just on robot performance. If you look, who has the best engineering schol in the country? Indiana (Purdue). Who has the best regional in the country? Indiana (Boilermaker, I know I'll get people who say it isn't but I must admit it was pretty good). Who has the best off season event? Indiana (IRI). And who has the team with every award possible 4 times over? Indiana (Team 71). So I think its obvious when you look accross the board which state is the best. Oh yeah, Andy Baker and Bill Beaty, Indiana residents. AndyMark.biz, Indiana business. Oh well, I live in Indiana so I have a bias toward it, but I do know it is one of the more competive states in FIRST. But one thing is for sure, I think you'll all agree, the Midwest is the best region of the country by far.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Actually, according to USNews, who puts out rankings each year, the best engineering school that offers a BS or MS is Rose Hulman Institute of Technology, followed by Harvey Mudd

The best engineering school to offer a doctorate is MIT, followed by Stanford, and UC Berkeley.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Isn't Rose Hulman in Indiana? I know one of our seniors who is going there, but I didn't talk much besides, "Is it a good school?" "yeah, its one of the best."

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Indeed it is.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

[quote=JulieB]ALABAMA
That was an unfair and untrue stereotype. Yes there are teams that maybe the mentors and sponsors play a larger role in building their robot, but there is certianly not a bigger problem in any one area of the country than another. And beyond that many dont even consider that a problem at all.
There are just as many hard working, student driven teams north of the mason dixon as south of it.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

To say that teams in the north have sponsor built bots is a bit absurd, Look at teams like 121 and 69 Those bots are not sponsor built and yet both perform very well annually

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

Of course it is Georgia. You wanna know why, we host the Nationals. Yeah, and we are growing at a steady pace. New is good. First is relatively new in Georgia. So Georgia is the best.

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

<offtopic> Everyone referring to the sponsor-built issue, before this gets way too heated...

FIRST is about learning. A robot can be mainly sponsor-/engineer-built, but as long as you have students learning how or why something works, you are meeting the goals of FIRST. Therefore, it's unfair to infer anything or categorize robots in a negative light just because they may have more adult input than others. They're like any other robot out there.

Everyone breathe, think happy thoughts, let friendly debate re-commence :p </offtopic>

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

you also forgot MICHIGAN (capital for infancies) has two Chairman Award winners :D

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

I dont really need to explain but we all know that Texas is the best :)

-Pavan

*Proof to be added*

Re: What Is the best FIRST state.
 

i would say it starts with a U and a S and an A.


(i know usa's not a state and I'm not bagging on the other countries.)