Championship Division Strength

[Rob]

Would you rather be in a deep division with lots of strong teams, or a shallow division with only a few powerhouses?

Let us know why!

I did not make this a poll because I have some irrational dislike for polls, so lets just open up the discussion!

Rob

[Greg Needel]

well I think that depends on the strength of your bot. If you are a powerhouse team in a division of powerhouse teams then odds are you are going to have some tough but good matches. You can look at it like playing golf with a pro..they always seem to make you better.

On the flip side of things if you have a medium bot i would rather be in the medium division so i am not getting trounced every match.

So much goes in to this...

[Daniel_LaFleur]

I would rather play against the best teams out there. It pushes you to be better, and shows you where you stand against the best. If we only played against mediocre teams how would we know how good we are, or how good we can become.


Given the chance I would play chess against Bobby Fisher, even though I would have no chance at winning. Because it is an honor to play against the best.

[kborer22]

everyone who builds their bot wants to push it to the limits, "go big or go home". Naturally everyone wants to win, especially on the National level, and you would be proud of say winning a divisions if you were in a "stacked" division or not, but regardless of what division you are in, or how many amazing robots there are, you will face the best of the best in each division playoff. You may have it "easy" through qualifying, but come time do decide who plays in the big game you are going to get the best each robot/team has, i really think that despite there being some harder divisions, in the end its going to be tough regardless.

[Liz Smith]

I think that either way the competition will be difficult. First, I haven't seen a division where there weren't a ton of powerful robots.

With that said, if you are in what you consider a "powerhouse" division, you are playing against them, but you also have them on your alliances too. You get the disadvantage of hard matches at times competing against strong robots, but you also get the advantage of having those robots on your alliance as well!

Same goes the other way, you may compete in one match against a weaker robot, but that same robot may be on your alliance in the next match.

[Tim Delles]

Powerhouse team.

If I had the chance to choose a division that had lets say

25, 66, 67, 71, 111, 121, 173, 217, 233, 254, 469, 494, 571, 1114

(I know that this will never happen, because just look at all the talent that would be in that division)

I would have to say through my team in thier so that we can play, cause if you can't go big you must well go home.

*** This is not saying that these are the best teams in FIRST, just that these teams have proven themselves over and over no matter the game and i consider these teams to be some powerhouse teams***

[Cory]

I'd rather play in a division with enough elite teams to form a good alliance.

Look at what happened on Archimedies last year. Everyone beat each other up, and lots of the robots that were generally regarded as being among the best in the country didn't even make it far in the divisional playoffs.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

For our particular robot design.. powerhouse division. We designed our bot to control the small goal, but we have found playing a good defensive game will get us much farther. Therefore, if there are more good shooting teams, more good shooting alliances will be formed and alliances will rely on defensive powerhouses, such as ourselves, to get the job done.

[J Flex 188]

A Powerhouse division by far. It does eliminate some of the teams that may deserve to be on Einstein along the way, but as so often quoted, Dean said FIRST isn't fair. Look at Archimedes in 2004, the field that 188 was on. That division was absolutely stacked with 71, 111, 60, 33, 494, 571, 56, 45, 269, 1272, 1002 and the list goes on, but that didn't mean the other fields did not have any kind of competition or that they did not stand a chance against them. Even with what seems like a massive concentration of talent, there will always be teams sneaking under the radar, teams that have won a regional or two but lack the star power of some of the big names as well. I don't think in either scenario will you ever have a lack of competition. You want to be in a division or paired with the best robots possible, so you want to be in the stacked division. If your robot performs well, even with a shoddy win-loss record due to poor luck or what not, the legitimate teams that pick at the end of the day well notice (a la 610 in 2006). By Championships, the big teams that do end at the top of the divisions should have a scouting system worked out. There is more than enough depth across all FIRST teams to have a wild Championship event, especially this year.
Then you just have to make the right call on who to pick, and sometimes it can turn out agonizing. 111 or 71 anyone?

[Jake177]

I would definitely rather be in a powerhouse division. If you want to do well on Einstein, you need a good alliance. The only way to get a good alliance is to be in a division with a lot of good teams.

[techtiger1]

You know this year especially with my teams robot I would rather be in a powerhouse division. My team 1251 was in Archimedes last year and I mean that was a powerhouse division. Unfortunately we only got to play with one of the real legends that were in the division (71) and we played against the great teams more then we did with them. However, you do have that chance of getting to play with those good teams and if luck is on your side you might just end up sitting real pretty at the end of qualifying, if not hey you played against the best and who knows maybe one of the big teams you played with or against will remember you in alliance selections.

My two cents on the issue,
Drew

[Jizvonius]

Originally Posted by J Flex 188

That division was absolutely stacked with 71, 111, 60, 33, 494, 571, 56, 45, 269, 1272, 1002 and the list goes on...

Wow, you listed us with those teams?!

::Tears up:: so... happy

Back on track though, being someone who doesn't make it out of the pits too often, I would rather be in a powerhouse division if only to shorten my walk to see awesome robots. In terms of learning and being interesting, powerhouse divisions are great.

[pyroslev]

I dont wanna be in a division where Im going to get run over nor do the running over. Newton last year was the type of division I like. Good game and matches with strong, but not all super robots. It got fun at the end but it was an uphill struggle to get there. I want to be in the seeds and to have earned it.

Every time I run the numbers, looks like my team is in a such division (Good shot @ winning but have to earn it.)

Edit: This sums it up for me too...

Originally Posted by Cory

From all the responses, it seems like most people have interpreted "non-powerhous division" to mean "completely free of elite teams".

I'd much rather be in a situation like Galileo and Newton were last year, where there were obviously teams who were capable of winning it all, and enough of them to form a winning alliance, but not so many that you got completely beat up on the entire weekend before even the divisional playoffs/final matches.

[Don Wright]

Powerhouse division.

If you are a powerhouse team, I would rather come out of my division knowing I beat the best and I should have a good chance on Einstein. Also, with more powerhouse teams, the third pick should be better than the third pick in other divisions giving you a better chance on the center field.

If you are a middle ranked team, then I would still rather be in a powerhouse division to hopefully be picked by the winning powerhouse, and make it to Einstein.

[Dan Petrovic]

I'd rather be in the hardest division possible. Think about what you can learn from all of these amazing teams!

Also, so I could root for my division in the finals.