2012-Greater Toronto Regional East

[iVanDuzer]

To the planning committee and all the teams at GTR East, kudos to you. It was a show to be sure, one full of nerves and excitement.

Originally Posted by Lara Surmak

Personally, I think that 2056 and 1114 are being extremely hypocritical about gracious professionalism and coopertition.

First the GP. Both teams don't design and manufacture their own robots. They have professional engineers and mentors do it for them. Whatever happened to student designed, student built?

I'm a former student from 2056. Now I mentor another team. I can honestly say that some of the coolest ideas that went on our competition robots for the past 5 years have been student designed (including the climbing device that won a Championship design award in 2010). If you're talking to the former driver and he's getting defensive, it's probably because he knows this and is expecting another lambasting for driving a "mentor-built" robot.

Now coopertition. 2056 and 1114 always pick each other, and end up winning each time. It's not even a surprise anymore, and I doubt you feel accomplished.

I know the students on 2056 feel very accomplished with their successes (and I should know, one of them is my brother). They also feel lucky. This is because Canadian teams are getting much better than the results suggest.

For all intents and purposes, 2056 and 1114 should NOT have won that regional. The triple balance, had it worked, would have won both finals 1 and 2. A similar thing happened in 2009, with two of the same teams. Both times, some well-timed luck for 2056 kept the streak alive.

188, 610, 772, 1503, 781 have all won regionals in the past 4 years. Not against 1114 or 2056, and in some cases with them, but they have shown that they are the best of the best. These teams are consistently in the finals of Canadian regionals, and build alliances that, if they were competing elsewhere, could probably win most regionals. The fact that they are all improving at such a ridiculous rate and that 2056 and 1114 are able to keep winning really speaks to their own improvements. In the face of such amazing teams (four of which last year surpassed both 2056+1114 at the World Championships), to have a streak of 12 regional wins is absolutely something to take pride in.

TL;DR Canadian regionals are a lot more competitive than many people seem to think...