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Originally Posted by Jeff Waegelin
The simplest answer is, continued high-level performance. Winning Nationals once will get you lots of recognition, but to really be an "elite" team, you need to do well, year after year. The teams I would consider "elite" are the ones you can always count on to be playing in the finals, and always have a good shot at winning. Most have multiple regional wins, though not always a Championship to their credit.
Let's put it this way: if you had to pick an alliance partner before Kickoff, without any knowledge of the game, or your alliance's robot, who would you pick? Chances are, you'd want to pick a team with a good reputation for success, every year. Past performance doesn't always dictate future results, but there are some teams you just know will be extremely competitive, every season. Those are the teams that, in my mind, are deserving of "elite" status.
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I agree--elite status, in my opinion, involves a few things:
- Name (or number) recognition. This could be from seeing a jaw-dropping robot, the aforementioned shirts, or from having seen their members' posts on ChiefDelphi. (The latter is an individual effort, but since you have your team mentioned every time you post, it still has the effect.)
- Consistently high performance, not necessarily on the field.
- A robot that is either tremendously effective (1402 and their tetra dumper, 179 and their pitchfork), tremendously interesting (1398 with the skateboard), good to look at (1293 with our panels), or any combination of that (233 and...yeah).
I'll modify Jeff's criteria for elite status. If you were in a Fantasy FIRST league and had to draft before Kickoff, who would you pick? (say, that would be an interesting concept.)
As for winning something for four years straight, I could see that--but let's not count out the new gals at the dance. For example, 1398's gone to six competitions, and has five awards to their credit. (That includes a Rookie All-Star and EI award at Palmetto, and a Judge's Award at the Championship this year). Even though they're only a second-year team, I'd consider them among the top teams in the state in the non-robot department. (And we've got some great teams in this state--see also 281, 342, and 343.)