Which region is the best?

[Tyler Hicks]

Michigan is the most challenging and competitive region, hands down. There is a District/State Championship system for a reason.

[PayneTrain]

Should the parameters be limited to Einstein and Chairman's Winners? Should the regions be classified differently? Some states or pairs of states have more teams than entire regions.

[Duke461]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Also, who gets Canada?

Good Point. All International teams are now considered the international region.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Duke461

Good Point. All International teams are now considered the international region.

Why?

[Jeff Waegelin]

I've competed on 5 different teams, in 3 different regions (Michigan/Midwest, New England, Texas), and I have to say, Michigan is the best, hands-down. Nowhere else has such a high concentration of elite-level powerhouse teams, and nowhere else is the level of competition as high across the board.

I will give New England some credit for having a lot of solid veteran teams, and a high overall level of play. There are also a lot of great powerhouse teams in the "greater Midwest" outside of Michigan. Texas has a couple of great veteran teams, too. But if I had to pick one area as "the best", it's definitely Michigan.

[Taylor]

For further discussion, here's a list of states by # of teams (FRC only).
I have not compiled any data for teams outside the United States.
As I was doing this, it occurred to me that Mark McLeod has probably already done this, with charts and graphs.

1. CA - 175
2. MI - 171
3. TX - 144
4. MN - 131
5. NY - 127
6. WA - 82
7. VA - 68
8. NJ - 64
9. FL - 56
10. MA - 53
11. MO - 52
12. OH, OK, PA - 48
13. IL - 43
14. CT - 42
15. AZ - 40
16. GA, NC - 36
17. CO, IN, OR - 35
18. MD - 34
19. HI, NH - 32
20. WI - 31
21. SC - 25
22. LA - 24
23. KS - 19
24. UT - 18
25. TN - 16
26. DC, KY - 14
27. ID - 13
28. NV - 11
29. AL, MS - 10
30. ME - 8
31. WY - 7
32. MT - 6
33. RI, WV - 5
34. AR, IA, ND, VT - 3
35. AK, DE, NM, PR - 2

NE, SD - 0 teams


Key:
0 Black
1-10 Brown
11-20 Red
21-30 Orange
31-40 Yellow
41-50 Green
51-60 Blue
61-70 Violet
71-80 White
81-90 Gray
91-100 Pink
100+ Gold

Edit: It is my hope that this gives us a more holistic picture of the spread of FRC teams. Before we start assigning "good" "better" and "best" it'd be a good idea to determine what exactly we mean as "region" and whether it is classified by pure geography or by team saturation.

[Duke461]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

Why?

Why not? Proposals are greatly appreciated

[Duke461]

Originally Posted by Taylor

It is my hope that this gives us a more holistic picture of the spread of FRC teams. Before we start assigning "good" "better" and "best" it'd be a good idea to determine what exactly we mean as "region" and whether it is classified by pure geography or by team saturation.

Well, I think we can keep the regions how they are, but instead, look at it percentage-wise.
So for instance, lets say 10 solid teams are in region x, and 1 team that is the best in the history of FIRST is in region y. Percentage wise, you could argue that that region Y is better, or vice versa. So i guess, look at it that way
Remember, its 90% opinion, 10% educated observation.

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by Duke461

Why not? Proposals are greatly appreciated

Actually it kind of makes as much sense to group teams from Canada, Israel, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, the UK, etc. together as it does to include Hawaii and Alaska in the Northeast.

Its an arbitrary grouping with arbitrary criteria, so go for it! I'm adding any future teams from the Moon, Mars, or the Asteroid belt to the International grouping, though. Team #94543 "Luna Incorporated and Tranquility Base Secondary" is going to ROCK. (Except for the fact they will fail tech inspection because they didn't have enough room to paint their team number on their bumper.)

I will suggest, however, that teams in the "overseas" group have some additional logistical challenges that teams in the United States and Canada don't have (I'm not sure to what degree Mexican teams are affected, but NAFTA provisions should make things a bit easier than for non-NAFTA countries.)

So when considering a team's overall awesomeness, I'd give a lot of the overseas teams at least a 10% head start just for getting their robot through customs (at least three times... KoP in, robot out, robot back home), dealing with shipping delays and expenses, and then getting the whole team to a competition.

Oh, yeah... they have to put up with all those silly imperial part sizes and specifications, too.

Jason

[cpeister]

Although Michigan may have the best teams, the Niagara region of Canada has several powerhouses as well. Regionals with 1114 and 2056 together are all I have experienced (except for Waterloo in '09), but needless to say they consistently make a near unstoppable alliance.

[roystur44]

With 175 teams it looks like its time for a California State Championship tournament.

[Zack247]

Having competed both in the Michigan State Championship and on Einstein, the MSC is a much harder overall level of competition.