Quote:
Originally Posted by Looking Forward
CHESAPEAKE:
Over the past few year's, Chesapeake has become one of the largest regionals in FIRST, and one of the consistently most unbalanced. Every year it seems an "upper crust" of teams form at the event and dominate. Whichever alliance is successful at unifying these teams typically walks away with the gold fairly easily. I don't expect any of that to change in the 61 team field in Annapolis this year.
The Baltimore Area Alliance will once again be rocking the Halsey Field House in 2008. In '07 they managed to earn three medals (Chairman's, EI, and a finalist), each coming from a different team. I expect more of the same from this collection of teams, with at least one member sneaking into the finals and another collecting either RCA or EI. Whether they make the finals or not, look out for 768 and 1727 to both do well, and one of them likely to emerge as an alliance captain.
1629 is poised to be a member of the top-tier teams in Annapolis again in '08. Their inability to remove balls from the overpass and potential collection troubles may hurt them, but their quick and maneuverable drive should allow for them to score points even without a ball. I don't think they'll be able to carry an alliance on their own, but if they can pair up with another hurdler who can remove the ball from the overpass quickly, I expect nothing short of the finals from the Garrett Coalition.
614 is quietly one of the most consistent teams at the Chesapeake regional, but not only have they never won the event, they've never taken home an award. While I don't expect them to dominate the field, this could be the year they take the trophy monkey off their back and finally bring home some hardware.
Normally flowers wouldn't be considered intimidating, but when you line up against Miss Daisy you can find out just how scary they can be. 341 should be a reliable machine and likely a first-round selection.
836 was one of the best teams in Trenton two weeks ago, but their drivers seemed to struggle at times controlling their machine. If the Robobees' drivers improve with the added practice, they'll become my favorites to take home a banner from the Naval Academy on Saturday.
359, 11, 449, and 293 each also look to build off of decent earlier competitions that fell short of gold. I would watch out for 1626's debut here as well.
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X-Factors:
Team RAID (2537) - one of the few do-it-all robots in the competition, albeit a bit top-heavy. Very maneuverable bot,
The Brigade (1980) - do not count them out!! It's #1 seed or bust for them!
CENTER OF MASS - At PlayDay--a number of the hurdlers flipped while trying to do their job. This may happen again at regional.