[Wolfe]

This year marks the first Canadian regional ever. There will be almost 50 teams, and almost half of them are new teams from Canada. What worries me, is that the new Canadian teams are going to get destroyed by the veteran Americans. Teams 610, and 188 are trying our best to help new teams in any way we can, financially, technically, with organization, there is even another team (863), building their robot in our lab.

But, I'm afraid our help won't make enough of a difference. As much as we try to help, we are a small school with a small team (30 students 3 engineers) and only one year of experience in FIRST. It would be really awful, if the new Canadian teams all got badly beaten by American teams. If you look at the American teams going to the regional, over 70% of them are odd numbers. Likely, several of those teams are thinking the will be able to easily beat the Canadian newbies and get a pass to the nationals.

I was wondering if there has been a similar situation when other regionals started-up. It is common, that when a new regional starts up, there are a crop a local teams that quickly get slaughtered?

Is there a ray of hope? Maybe the American teams won't be used to playing the game in -40 degree temperatures. Maybe the Canadian beer will knock them all out. Maybe they will be paralysed with laughter at what all of the stoopid rookie Canucks have built.

Please tell me if you have any relevant FIRST experiences or anecdotes. Or if you just want to laugh at my misfortune, that's ok too. And how do you think the Canadian teams will do? The new ones going to the regional, not the 3 veteran teams.