Re: Hardest Regional
 

For exactly the reasons I outlined in my post. There are nine Indiana teams entering their fourth or fifth year; I believe 2009 will be a coming-of-age year and a return to glory for Indiana teams in general.

Re: Hardest Regional
 

As I promised earlier here is the link to the page I created to generate the data. http://schreiaj.ath.cx/~andrew/FRC/index.php

Couple things to keep in mind

• This data is only as accurate as my regular expressions, if you notice incorrect data tell me and I will tweak my expressions.
• I am trying to keep it plain so that it remains fast.
• This is a beta input is encouraged
• This is hosted on my HOME server so the connection may go out if you guys all hammer on it. So be kind

Enjoy

EDIT: If anyone would be willing to offer server space on a real server I would appreciate it. Requirements: The ability to hold a large number of txt files (about 3.8 mBs worth). Be a Unix compatible server (the pages uses grep and sed) Allow php to call shell_exec.

Re: Hardest Regional
 

Great job, Andrew...does this data stick to the 05 to present award count?

Re: Hardest Regional
 

Not yet, I am working on figuring out the best way of allowing users to pick date ranges. Would checkboxes for years work? ie
[] 1990 []1991 []1992 etc etc?

Re: Hardest Regional
 

IMO...a data set from the last 4 years provides a decent picture of time relevant trends and is more relevant than a data set that includes awards from 10 or more years ago. To use an NFL analogy, if I was going to consider a bet on a game that includes San Francisco who has a great history of multiple championships I would want to look at recent history before dropping a dime on a game, wouldn't I? I am a great fan of the 49ers by the way, but a realist just the same!

Re: Hardest Regional
 

While I agree there are some people who could want to run over the whole history. My ultimate goal is flexibility.

Re: Hardest Regional
 

I believe that the Philly regional is missing from the selection box. Can that be fixed please?
I really like this tool. It looks like it could be great for some prelim scouting. Thanks very much!:]

Re: Hardest Regional
 

I apologize for any outage for the last hour, I forgot that I was working on the live copy of the code. Oops. I added the Philly regional, if theres any other regional (other than Championship and MI Championship) please tell me. I added in date ranges. Currently they are limited to since 2005 or since ever. I can add more in if people want it. About the awards, what awards should be options?

Re: Hardest Regional
 

[quote=Andrew Schreiber;774402]As I promised earlier here is the link to the page I created to generate the data. http://schreiaj.ath.cx/~andrew/FRC/index.php

Couple things to keep in mind

• This data is only as accurate as my regular expressions, if you notice incorrect data tell me and I will tweak my expressions.
• I am trying to keep it plain so that it remains fast.
• This is a beta input is encouraged
• This is hosted on my HOME server so the connection may go out if you guys all hammer on it. So be kind

looking at this i noticed that 1557 has 1 awards but we have never won the chairmans or won the regional,

does finalist mean,a team that has mad it to the finals in a regional?

Re: Hardest Regional
 

I believe you may have had the All box checked off b/c it works fine for your team. And yes.

Re: Hardest Regional
 

Yes it does, I assume you have the All box checked, I guess this is misleading, what it means is Any award ever won is listed.

Re: Hardest Regional
 

I do,


OH, then we should have four? because we have made it to the finals three times since 2004

Re: Hardest Regional
 

Finals is different. This is the final TWO alliances at the end of the eliminations. You are thinking of eliminations I presume?

Eliminations is:
Quarterfinals--> Semifinals-->Finals

Re: Hardest Regional
 

OH, duh, i forgot about the quarter and semi's. for some reason i though the finals were all one things my bad:(

Re: Hardest Regional
 

hey great job man on the info site

Re: Hardest Regional
 

[quote=gorrilla;774514]Thanks,

This is fun.
Using the "All" and "Ever" choices the CT regional looks pretty good ;)

Re: Hardest Regional
 

Is your BBQ/SAUCE program going to be updated to reflect changes to the regional team lists?

Re: Hardest Regional
 

Oh, changes have been made? I just updated it. I will try to write a job to update the event lists weekly but no promises on that.

Also, if someone has event codes for previous year I am trying to add in the option to select events for the year.

I also added the ability to link to specific events by passing ?event=[eventcode] Example: http://schreiaj.ath.cx/~andrew/FRC/?event=hi will automatically link you to the Hawaii regional.

Still on the todo list is the ability to generate a link based on your query data and email that out. I have a way of doing this it just requires me sitting down and coding it which should come in the next couple days. I am also looking into reworking how the data is stored internally.

If there are any requests for features PM me and I will see what I can do.

Re: Hardest Regional
 

Just to throw a wrench into the works, (its instructive to count the teeth coming out of the gears) what happens to the numbers if you only count the winning bots, disregarding the repeat winnings in a given year? eg. if my team won two regionals in a given year, that would only count as one winning bot.

Re: Hardest Regional
 

That should close some of the larger gaps in the point totals. But regionals with a high percentage of teams that go to more than one regional will still look stronger based on this type of stats. Its all for fun anyway, because the toughest regional is always the one you are competing in!

Re: Hardest Regional
 

And to throw another variable into the mixture ... :p

I've always figured that it's easier to win a regional if there are less teams there, therefore I'd suggest weighing the regional wins by how many teams were at that regional.

Re: Hardest Regional
 

Definitely gonna third both IKE and Cory's response in saying the the Michigan Championships will be killer! And i wish good luck to both 1114 and whoever faces them (they will need it)

Re: Hardest Regional
 

Since the season is nearing completion...its safe to say that the MI Championship is insane.

Re: Hardest Regional
 

second:cool:

Re: Hardest Regional
 

Florida

Re: Hardest Regional
 

I'm going to say the CT regional. A lot of really good teams, such as 126, 1124, 1100, 20, and 175, compete in this regional. Also, a lot of the founding teams of FIRST compete there. Roughly 60 teams compete each year, which is a lot of competition for the winner's banner.

Since that is the only regional I go to I might be biased, but after watching webcasts of other regionals and while their matches are good, they pale in comparison to the matches seen here in CT.

Re: Hardest Regional
 

aaaannnddd.....midwest, two previous world champs, beast, bomb squad wildstang...yeah.....

Re: Hardest Regional
 

I second this statement

Re: Hardest Regional
 

What did you think of the washington state regional? The driving wasn't as evasive as I'd strategized for.

Re: Hardest Regional
 

The michigan state. You had the best in michigan there, and if you saw it, you saw tough matches. Even the seeding matches were challenging. Most regionals will have a few bots that sit around and really don't do much, while the michigan was all the big, bad, and and ball happy bots.

Re: Hardest Regional
 

There were no real blowouts that this event, every seeding match was close. THere were never any grantee wins, any given group of robots could win a match or lose a match.

As for the Elimations, when you have teams like 27, 47, 494, 1701 not even making it, you have to think about how deep this regional was. You could have made up 12 alliances that all could win regionals all on thier own. The championship winning teams are all former world champs (65,67,217(x2)). I wouldn't be surpise that 3 of the teams in that tournment are playing on einstien on saturday. ( Since 1998, 1/3 of the world champions have come from michigan.)

This tournment presented the cream of the crop, and frankly some of the better robots in the country.

Re: Hardest Regional
 

you posted this thing 5 minutes ago, and 10 people responded. WTF?:)
anyways... our maryland regional wasnt very hard untill the semifinals, but i guess it was so difficult due to how awsome the kit was...

Re: Hardest Regional
 

These forums are mostly dealing with FRC stuff. There's a nice FIRST Tech Challenge forum right here.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure the answer is Michigan, without question. Just from what I've heard, and all of the great robots that didn't even make eliminations.

Re: Hardest Regional
 

Agreed, wherever 1114 is, it is tough.

Re: Hardest Regional
 

I agree that the Michigan State Championships may be the toughest competiton in FRC. But it is not the toughest regional. That would have to go to BAE. It's by far the toughest first week regional, and has the same, if not more competition than CT. But at BAE, teams haven't had 4+ weeks to revise...

Re: Hardest Regional
 

Another post to defend midwest, week one with the biggest names in attendance

Re: Hardest Regional
 

Key words, first week. Vegas has to take some share this year. When half the bracket goes to three matches to advance, save for one of the QFs in that side, and the one QF set has a very close match, you know it's tough. Or how about when 254 is eliminated before the finals...

Re: Hardest Regional
 

I'm gonna have to say Midwest is an insane regional.

Michigan State Championship doesn't really count as a regional... If it did, then it would be the hardest regional.

Re: Hardest Regional
 

I have heard this thought a couple times, how exactly does it not count as a regional? For that matter, how are our districts not regionals? They are as large as any small regional. Just because we run them more efficiently does not make them less of an event.

I apologize for the rant but I have heard them called "fake" too many times to put up with that misconception any longer.


MSC may be the most balanced regional. I would place Midwest as the hardest, first week regionals are always tough but anyone that had that many former Champions at it is bound to be scary.

Re: Hardest Regional
 

I would say the regionals in the Midwest. They have some of the oldest and most experienced teams, mine included. The older teams have the way they do things down to a science and don't have to deal with the little stuff. Although a fresh perspective is not a bad thing any time.

Re: Hardest Regional
 

I have to agree with Andrew. How can you not consider MSC at regional. It had 64 teams for around the state, how they got there is just different from any other regional. Its like super regional, where there was the top tier teams from the state. Go on to the blue alliance and count how many close matches there were compared to blowouts, and then check other regionals.

How many have been successful in atlanta. How many of these good teams sat out (494 a former world champ)(47 a einstien finalsit).All it did was take the top 50% of the state, put them under one buliding and let them fight it out! Look at some of the good teams that were knocked out in the quarter finals.
Alliance #4- 469- A world Champ 910- A Curie divison winner
Alliance #8- 68- Multi Regional Winner 33-Multi Reginoal winner
Alliance #7- 85- Multi Reginoal Winner 326- Defending GLR Champs
Any group of these could take deep runs into many other regionals across the country. It shows how tough it was!

To all those who say that the MSC didn't count as a regional, do as Karithk (sorry on spelling) and many others did, Drive or Fly to come see the competeion next year.

Re: Hardest Regional
 

I wouldn't say it isn't a regional, but I wouldn't really consider it for this discussion. Since you have to qualify to get in, its clearly going to be a 'stacked' event (unless Michigan teams are generally bad, which we all know is most definitely not the case). It's sort of like arguing whether a championship division is harder to win than a regional. Clearly it is because the average team is of a higher calibre, so it isn't a very interesting discussion.

Re: Hardest Regional
 

MSC isn't a regional because you have to qualify to get in. In terms of competition itself, yes, it qualifies as a large regional. But in terms of being able to get in, you have to 1) be a Michigan team and 2) compete at at least one District event, more often 2, and then qualify by points. No other regional event does that.

Districts have almost the same argument. Regional competitions are open to ANY FRC team. So, the team from the Philippines could go to BAE or Israel, a Los Angeles team can go to the New Zealand Regional (when it happens), or a San Diego team can go to the L.A. Regional. They could do this instead of their home event, or along with it.

But the MI district events are closed to anybody that isn't from MI.

The difference is slight but real: Regionals don't have qualifications other than $$$$, Districts have $$$$ and geographic location, MSC has $$$, location, and point scores.

Hey, MSC is tougher to get into than the World Championship. You can open-register for the Championship. Can't do that for MSC. You can qualify for the Championship. You have to for MSC. See the difference?

Competition-wise, yeah, they're pretty much the same. But when you artificially restrict teams from entering, that changes a lot of things. You block out other nearby teams that would otherwise come in and quite possibly raise (or lower) the competition level.

And for nikeairmancurry: You offering to pay my way (or the way of anyone else who wants to come) to MSC next year? :p Because I don't know about you, but I'm a little short on a lot of things for the forseeable future... like money and time... Maybe someday I'll make it.

Re: Hardest Regional
 

I don't think you can argue that MSC isn't a regional, it's on FIRST's regional event page:
http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc...ts.aspx?id=430

The competition at MSC was tougher than the Curie division this year. It's with out a a doubt the toughest regional.

Re: Hardest Regional
 

See the district event page. http://usfirst.org/community/frc/content.aspx?id=9508

Re: Hardest Regional
 

So your saying it's a district event?

Re: Hardest Regional
 

Its a State Championship, not a regional because you have to qualify for it, cant see why this needs to be debated

Re: Hardest Regional
 

I'm saying that your argument (it's a regional because it's on the regional events page) is not valid. By said argument, it's also a district event. In format, it obviously isn't one. In qualification, it isn't a regional event. It's the State Championship.