Canadian supremacy

[connor.worley]

Not to diminish Canadian teams, but I think the 1st seed won IRI this year because they came into elims with a very strong strategy in mind, and the best teams available to execute it were Canadian. 1334 carried that alliance. When someone runs an FCS, you have to defend against it. Teams at IRI sent a support bot with their FCS to cancel out the defense, so effectively you have a 2v2 matchup. However, 1334 was able to turn the situation back into a 3v2 when they climbed and dumped in the endgame. Very well played.

There was a set of Canadian teams that were all good at specific things, but their strength as an alliance was greater than the sum of the parts.

[1683cadder]

It's the mounties. don't forget the mounties.

[Nemo]

Canada succeeds for all of the usual reasons, plus they have Tim Horton's doughnuts, whereas in the U.S. we mostly don't.

[George C]

Thanks for all the kind words and best wishes particularly after our hard dismount. Our thanks to 1114 and 2056 for picking us for the alliance and to 2337 for their great work. Our thanks as well to the IRI organizers. A particularly well run event. Ask nicely and we'll bring you something from Timmy's next year. The way they're expanding there might even be a store in Indy by then.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

I'd love to hear some teams from the Toronto area comment on this. It's pretty clear these teams are improving at a rate which isn't matched by any other locality.

[Walter Deitzler]

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

I'd love to hear some teams from the Toronto area comment on this. It's pretty clear these teams are improving at a rate which isn't matched by any other locality.

Agreed. I would like to hear from some of these successful Toronto teams. I would think this would NOT be Canada's year, after the Ontario teacher's strike. What is up with this astounding growth?

[mman1506]

Originally Posted by LedLover96

Agreed. I would like to hear from some of these successful Toronto teams. I would think this would NOT be Canada's year, after the Ontario teacher's strike. What is up with this astounding growth?

I've actually heard from a few Toronto teams that the teacher strike actually helped them improve as a team.

[Jim Wilks]

Originally Posted by mman1506

I've actually heard from a few Toronto teams that the teacher strike actually helped them improve as a team.

That is definitely true in our case.

[cad321]

Team 2386 from Burlington, Ontario (about 40 minutes South West of Toronto), although not a powerhouse team such as 1114, 2056 or 610 has most definitely been motivated by the powerhouses. Without these teams we would not be required to work so hard just to be able to qualify for Worlds. These teams make it so that other Ontario teams need to aim to do things that many other teams just don't need to because they don't have powerhouses near them forcing them to do any better. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely teams all over the world that strive towards making the best robot they can to perform best at worlds. That being said, why do more work than you need to if the motivation isn't there.

Also the teachers strike (although making things more challenging) certainly helped motivate us. We were the only extra-curricular running (technically a class but was really an extra-curricular) and needed to not only represent our school but show our peers that robotics was more than a bunch of nerds getting together to do lame, nerdy things. The strike also sent more teachers wanting to continue helping after school to come to our program and mentor. This gave us even more qualified help (on top of the amazing teachings that come from our mentors in industry).

The timmies and maple syrup clearly help as well .

[Pault]

Originally Posted by cad321

Team 2386 from Burlington, Ontario (about 40 minutes South West of Toronto), although not a powerhouse team such as 1114, 2056 or 610 has most definitely been motivated by the powerhouses. Without these teams we would not be required to work so hard just to be able to qualify for Worlds. These teams make it so that other Ontario teams need to aim to do things that many other teams just don't need to because they don't have powerhouses near them forcing them to do any better. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely teams all over the world that strive towards making the best robot they can to perform best at worlds. That being said, why do more work than you need to if the motivation isn't there.

I can definitely see this as a big part of why Canada is so successful. Even though there are other teams out there who strive to be the best, its different in Canada. Why? Because teams build a robot to accomplish their goal for the season, and robot that was built with the goal of making it to elims will tend to turn out different than one with the goal to win on Einstein. For example, nearly every powerhouse team did not settle for a pure cycler. They knew that in order to maximize their chances of winning on Einstein, they needed to do more.* In Canada, because of 1114 and 2056, if you want to win a regional, you are going to have to aim higher than most powerhouse teams. Because of that, they are ending up with more and more teams trying to go above and beyond with floor pickups, 30pt climbs, etc. And the ones who opt to just cycle are going to try their very hardest to create a worthy cycler.

So, thank you to 1114 and 2056. Despite people complaining about how you hog all of the glory to yourself, there were people out there who knew that you were just pushing the rest of Ontario to it's limits. And this year, we can finally see that it worked. Because of you, FRC is a much better competition.

*Someone is going to come at me and say that 3 cyclers won on einstein, but 2 of them had floor pickups, and the finalists only had 1 robot that cycled: 469: arguably the team with the biggest bag of tricks this year.

[cad321]

Originally Posted by Pault

In Canada, because of 1114 and 2056, if you want to win a regional, you are going to have to aim higher than most powerhouse teams. Because of that, they are ending up with more and more teams trying to go above and beyond with floor pickups, 30pt climbs, etc. And the ones who opt to just cycle are going to try their very hardest to create a worthy cycler.

Exactly! This year 2386 bit off more than we could chew by doing almost everything, a 30pt climber, shooter and as always a great defense bot. We did this trying to be equal to or surpass the powerhouse teams. We could have succeeded if VEX had provided us with a critical dimension but that's beside the point.

Between Canada FIRST, amazing powerhouse teams and the WildCards Ontario teams have a great opportunity to go far in competition.

[jamierose]

At the Waterloo regional, I heard from Karthik that zero Canadian FRC teams bought Mecanum wheels this year. Maybe that has something to do with it?

Honestly, though, I think much of Canada's success comes from how much the teams work with each other. For example, 610 worked with teams such as 1241, 907, and 1310 throughout the season to practice and work on the robots. We also held a quick-build on kickoff day with several teams. I know that 1114 and 2056 also work with other teams in some way (or at least that's what I gathered from what Karthik said during the finals at GTR West in 2012). With some very good teams in Ontario and the high level of cooperation, this makes Ontario an example of successful Coopertition®.

[gr8dragon]

The teachers strike was really damaging to FIRST in Canada by removing a lot of veteran teams from regionals. The amazing part about the strike in my opinion though, is the fact that alumni/students/mentors, from teams that couldn't run this season, went on to help other teams. Personally I had the wonderful opportunity to work with team 1241 this year as a result. I think that in this way people have a chance to share how different teams run the season differently and take the best from here and there and put it together to be better overall. I imagine that if these people go back to their original teams next year, then they bring back all of this knowledge and can help their original teams do even better. In line with that is also that in Canada teams are starting to retain more and more alumni as mentors. I think that as a result their respective teams are getting better year after year. The alumni/mentor force is growing in Canada and is something I think that will help every team.

One thing I think that a lot of people may not know about Canadian regionals and teams is that, despite the rivalries all the teams don't forget to help each other out. At championships we cheer for each other, we share parts and we really do work like a community. To avoid sounding cliche, the fact that we can compete so much and compete the right way means that we can truly take the time to appreciate each others skills and be inspired by one another.

I would like to thank 1241 and any other teams that let members of "rival" teams join in their ranks. I am sure everyone else who had the chance had just as amazing an experience as I. It was truly humbling to be accepted into teams and be offered a job and be trusted to do what you do best.

As J -No said in his post big thank you to Canada FIRST for helping teams settle in during the strike period.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by gr8dragon

The teachers strike was really damaging to FIRST in Canada by removing a lot of veteran teams from regionals. The amazing part about the strike in my opinion though, is the fact that alumni/students/mentors, from teams that couldn't run this season, went on to help other teams. Personally I had the wonderful opportunity to work with team 1241 this year as a result. I think that in this way people have a chance to share how different teams run the season differently and take the best from here and there and put it together to be better overall. I imagine that if these people go back to their original teams next year, then they bring back all of this knowledge and can help their original teams do even better. In line with that is also that in Canada teams are starting to retain more and more alumni as mentors. I think that as a result their respective teams are getting better year after year. The alumni/mentor force is growing in Canada and is something I think that will help every team.

One thing I think that a lot of people may not know about Canadian regionals and teams is that, despite the rivalries all the teams don't forget to help each other out. At championships we cheer for each other, we share parts and we really do work like a community. To avoid sounding cliche, the fact that we can compete so much and compete the right way means that we can truly take the time to appreciate each others skills and be inspired by one another.

I would like to thank 1241 and any other teams that let members of "rival" teams join in their ranks. I am sure everyone else who had the chance had just as amazing an experience as I. It was truly humbling to be accepted into teams and be offered a job and be trusted to do what you do best.

As J -No said in his post big thank you to Canada FIRST for helping teams settle in during the strike period.

Aside from 188, what Canadian teams were not able to compete due to the strike? Curious how many were affected to that severity.

[Jonathan Norris]

Originally Posted by gr8dragon

I would like to thank 1241 and any other teams that let members of "rival" teams join in their ranks. I am sure everyone else who had the chance had just as amazing an experience as I. It was truly humbling to be accepted into teams and be offered a job and be trusted to do what you do best.

As J -No said in his post big thank you to Canada FIRST for helping teams settle in during the strike period.

I think you have a really good point here Parth, I've noticed recently that students and mentors from 'competing' teams make an effort to get involved in another team in FRC when they leave (in most cases high school students going to University). I saw this originally when starting 2809, we founded with mentors from 610, 771, 1114, ect. and have had university mentors over the years from almost every large team in Canada.

We've seen this trend recently on 610, This year we took in 3 188 mentors (Kaj, Pranit, and Sharven, going to miss you guys ), Mr. Lim was originally a 188 student and coached 1310 for a couple years, and Nick Lawrence was from 1503. Looking at our recent graduates they have gone on to mentor 4814, 1310, 2809, 771, and probably others.

This is a recurring trend I've seen from teams in Canada, I think it's been really healthy for the growth and increased competitiveness of teams in Canada. Lets keep it up!