Predictions Week 1: Assisted Take-Off

[Chris is me]

I'm pretty sure 1519 has the ability to shoot the ball. It might not quite be very far, but I know they've been working on increasing their range. I believe they have a linear shooter powered by CF springs.

Great to see these predictions back, looking forward to more.

[Racer26]

GTR-West is going to be a great show. A lot of Ontario's heavy-hitters are in attendance (but not our heaviest two).

Its really unfortunate what's had to happen with its venue, and not allowing spectators or more than 30 members per team. GTR-West at this venue is geographically the closest event to around 50 teams.

It is guaranteed to mark the first time that a regional in Ontario didn't count either 1114 or 2056 or both as one of its regional champions since the 2005 Waterloo Regional.

Which 3 will it be? I have NO IDEA how to predict, even having seen video of many of the robots in attendance. Aerial Assist is a game so different to past FRC games. There really does seem to be a pretty hard ceiling on robot performance. All of the top and second tier teams I've seen reveal videos for are all showing fairly similar capabilities. I haven't seen any robots that I would say are going to play this game dramatically better than others. It's going to come down to strategy and driver practice.

I think we are going to see a lot more lower seeded alliances winning events this year because of this. It's going to be much easier to build a #2-6 alliance that can hang with the #1 this year than many in recent memory.

[Link07]

So many great MAR teams playing week 1

[P.J.]

Every time we're mentioned by Looking Forward, I get a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

And don't count the MEZ teams out yet, I've learned over the years that they can surprise you.

[Nathan Streeter]

I'm also very glad to see LF back!

Originally Posted by Looking Forward

While there will be teams at every event who opted not to shoot (including Raider Robotix), the Granite State district may provide the best example of how robots designed for supporting roles may fair in 2014, with 95, 1519, and 2084 each forgoing the ability to shoot the ball.

I hate to nit-pick, but Chris is right... we do actually have a launcher, which is a Constant Force spring launcher with winch pull-back. We didn't have it at Week-Zero, as our practice robot/1st iteration (which we brought) didn't have a working launcher. We plan to be doing plenty of shooting at Granite State though!

[JosephC]

I for one am very excited to see 3098 at Southfield, they usual make great robots and last year was a bit of a let down; so its time for a comeback.

[Akash Rastogi]

The two MAR district events seem packed! Really excited to see predictions are back!