[TheMadCADer]

So this is how I see it playing out...

254, 341, 971, and 987 all come in as pretty well known favorites, so they'll have a bit of a target on them from other teams. Teams will Look Forward to playing with them and dread facing off against them, though they can pretty much count on Co-op points in those matches.

There are a few other teams in this division that can put up big points. Among them are 1477, 1986, and 624. Texas Torque and CRyptonite have teamed up twice now with great success, only losing in the Lone Star finals thanks to 1477's cRIO leaving them idle both matches. Both of these teams have been practicing with 118 down at NASA, with 1477 and 118 having developed a very reliable system for triple balancing (each has a stinger and brakes) - without the drivers talking to each other. 1986 has one of the most reliable bridge mechanisms I've seen out there and an incredibly accurate shooter. Expect them to start drawing more attention as well.

I'm not knowledgeable enough about teams 3098, 233, 1507, 27, 51, or 2474 this year to say all that much about them, but they're here and did well at regionals, which tells me they'll probably be doing quite well.

It will be interesting to see how alliance selection will turn out, since almost any team with hopes for Einstein will be looking for a triple balance. This may mean some long robots will be passed over for wide-oriented machines. However, there are some long teams out there that can still manage the triple. Teams like 254, 624, 971, 987, and 1477 aren't going to just allow something like that to limit their robots.

This looks like one of the more exciting divisions to watch. I can see a lot of different outcomes, which isn't something I can say so much about the other three divisions. This will be the one I'm watching closest. Knowing Championships, most of my predictions will be laughably far off, so it'll be fun!