Coming from the perspective of someone who saw too much of 1114 in competition last year this is why I believe 1114 is so successful. No one one 1114 posses any mystical powers, nor are they doing anything that any other team could not. But its a combination of collecting the smartest and most motivated mentors and students to challenge the limits of the FIRST Robotics competition. One thing that I believe has separates 1114 is their teams competitive spirit. Very few teams spend the time constantly tweaking and discovering how their robot truly works, tweaking and changing things to make their robot perform even better. Thats not to say they are perfect, or build unbeatable robots. If you talk to them they know exactly what the faults of their robots are, and I believe they learned many hard lessons that most FIRST teams have. But the scary thing about 1114 is that they learn their lessons quickly, and their robots have been getting better and better every year.
Anyone who says "It's because they are GM sponsored!" are plainly ignorant of how their team works. As I discovered this year the mentors and students who run 1114 love robotics, these guys know their stuff. They truly understand robot design, game strategy, and FIRST history.
I have heard too many Canadian teams complain about 1114 and the triplets far too many times, its time for us to learn from what 1114 and the triplets do right and work to be as or more competitive then them. Thats not to say there aren't Canadian teams who are not doing this take 296, 1305, and 188 as prime examples. But there are far to many teams that take the stance that "its 1114 we can't beat them...", thats the attitude that need to be changed.
Now getting back on topic: I hope to see more Canadian teams out there challenging 1114 and the triples next year to take the GTR crown away from them. You better know 610 will be coming for ya
