Strongest Regionals/District 2016?

[TedG]

Originally Posted by kyle_hamblett

Just because no one has said anything about New England yet...
Pine tree looks like it has a lot of competition:
58
125
319
1519
2648
4564
5122
5687

All of those teams have either won or been finalists at an official event in recent years.

Thanks for bringing up NE!
You forgot team 133..
Finalists and winners in recent years.
[/shameless plug]

[kyle_hamblett]

Originally Posted by TedG

Thanks for bringing up NE!
You forgot team 133..
Finalists and winners in recent years.
[/shameless plug]

My bad. Didn't do enough research on the rest of the teams.

[BL0X3R]

For the PNW, Auburn Mountainview has been a competitive event in its existence, but Philomath this year seems to be the strongest for 2016.

Usual Contenders:
CV Robotics [955]
Wildcats [1510]
Spartan Robotics [997]
Hotwire [2990]
Skynet [2550]

Joining this year: (This is where it gets really scary)
Shockwave [4488]
Skunkworks [1983]
IRS [1318]
Bear Metal [2046]
Lion Robotics [2907]

And still only 28 spots filled

[feverittm]

I would agree regarding Philomath in the PNW. This is going to be interesting. I would expect a lot of people will be watching this event as a pre-cursor to District Championships

[Munchskull]

Originally Posted by BL0X3R

For the PNW, Auburn Mountainview has been a competitive event in its existence, but Philomath this year seems to be the strongest for 2016.

Usual Contenders:
CV Robotics [955]
Wildcats [1510]
Spartan Robotics [997]
Hotwire [2990]
Skynet [2550]

Joining this year: (This is where it gets really scary)
Shockwave [4488]
Skunkworks [1983]
IRS [1318]
Bear Metal [2046]
Lion Robotics [2907]

And still only 28 spots filled

It is great to see that Philomath is going to have a deep set of teams to draw from.

[Navid Shafa]

Originally Posted by BL0X3R

Joining this year: (This is where it gets really scary)
Shockwave [4488]
Skunkworks [1983]
IRS [1318]
Bear Metal [2046]
Lion Robotics [2907]

You're forgetting that the Skunks were there last year too. I think they won it or something...

[Bob Steele]

Originally Posted by Navid Shafa

You're forgetting that the Skunks were there last year too. I think they won it or something...

Actually.... we didn't win it... our ALLIANCE won it.
We could not have done it without 955 and 847. They were great partners and we look forward to working with them again this year!!!

[Brian C]

Originally Posted by Bob Steele

Actually.... we didn't win it... our ALLIANCE won it.

Now there's a great example of the basic concept of FIRST right there!!

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by BL0X3R

For the PNW, Auburn Mountainview has been a competitive event in its existence, but Philomath this year seems to be the strongest for 2016.

Usual Contenders:
CV Robotics [955]
Wildcats [1510]
Spartan Robotics [997]
Hotwire [2990]
Skynet [2550]

Joining this year: (This is where it gets really scary)
Shockwave [4488]
Skunkworks [1983]
IRS [1318]
Bear Metal [2046]
Lion Robotics [2907]

And still only 28 spots filled

We briefly discussed traveling to Corvallis for this (it's the same distance as Las Vegas) as we're looking for a third regional, but the PNW Districts don't have a provision (yet) for outside teams.

[Bob Steele]

We would have loved to see you there!!! That would be loads of fun.
FIRST actually is the issue. You can only play in a District event if you come from a different District.

Last year 190 came all the way out from WPI and New Hampshire to compete at Philomath. They were from a District though...

Hope to see you guys in St. Louis!!
Same field again would be nice...... it seems to work out that way for some reason..... In the last 5 years we have been in the same division 4 out of 5 years.....last three in a row.... Only missed you guys in 2012 when we were on Newton and you were on Curie.

It is interesting that our two teams have been on either Curie or Newton for all of that time.

Now if we could just figure out how to be on the same Alliance for elims it would be even nicer

[Sohaib]

GTR-E has to be one of the, if not the most competitive regional this year.

You have THREE Einstein teams from just last year in 1114, 2056, and 1325.

There are three World Champions from past years in 610, 1114, and 1241.

You've got the teams on the alliance that upset the Sim/Dave alliance in 2014, teams 1285, 2198, and 4476, eliminating them in the Semi-Finals.

1310 is a local powerhouse that gets invited to IRI year after year. Not to mention 2056 who are yet to loose a regional.

This will be a really great regional to watch, and take part in, with an elevated level of play.

[Tim Sharp]

I know it's a new Regional, but Rocket City in Huntsville, AL looks pretty strong.
These are the registered teams who have either won or been runner up at an event within the last 3 years:

16, 79, 118, 343, 364, 456, 624, 801, 1251, 1539, 1706, 1902, 2783, 3490, 3959, 4188,

[kyle_hamblett]

Originally Posted by Sohaib

GTR-E has to be one of the, if not the most competitive regional this year.

You have THREE Einstein teams from just last year in 1114, 2056, and 1325.

There are three World Champions from past years in 610, 1114, and 1241.

You've got the teams on the alliance that upset the Sim/Dave alliance in 2014, teams 1285, 2198, and 4476, eliminating them in the Semi-Finals.

1310 is a local powerhouse that gets invited to IRI year after year. Not to mention 2056 who are yet to loose a regional.

This will be a really great regional to watch, and take part in, with an elevated level of play.

I'll have to put that one on my list of livestreams to watch. I was a little worried about 2056's streak once I saw the list for Waterloo... especially with 148 making an appearance.

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by kyle_hamblett

I'll have to put that one on my list of livestreams to watch. I was a little worried about 2056's streak once I saw the list for Waterloo... especially with 148 making an appearance.

Well, they were fine when 254 decided to visit in 2014, so, barring things I'm unaware of (of which there are many), I don't see 148 being in the mix shaking up 2056's chances of keeping their streak alive significantly.

There are a lot of ways to quantify "competitive". To me, it boils down to two questions: How difficult is it to win an event and how difficult is it to play Saturday (or Sunday) afternoon at an event. I'm not sure what the best way to quantify each of those is (and I'm pretty sure better minds than mine have tried), but it seems to me that one could come up with a number of statistics that might correlate to "competitiveness" at a regional.

I'm also not sure many of the previous posts in this thread are what I would say are most competitive overall. Perhaps in a given region, yes, but I wouldn't be likely to put one of our MN regionals on the same level as many Michigan District events, or even Wisconsin Regional, which always seems to be very deep, even if the ceiling isn't as high as places like Waterloo. It's quite difficult to make a judgement on the whole however, when I, like many people, only really have a strong knowledge of regionals in my area.

[tindleroot]

Originally Posted by cadandcookies

Well, they were fine when 254 decided to visit in 2014, so, barring things I'm unaware of (of which there are many), I don't see 148 being in the mix shaking up 2056's chances of keeping their streak alive significantly.

No, 148 will definitely shake up OP's chances. In 2014 there was a little bit of luck that went their way to keep 2056 on the winning streak. Namely, the fact that 4039 seeded first and picked Simbotics allowed 254 and 2056 to pair up. In many other situations, 254 and 1114 could have paired up and ended 2056's streak. Not to mention, if 148 had come to Waterloo this past year and 1114's canburglars were better, then the two probably would have paired up.

I'm sure 2056 is up to the challenge and excited to fight for another regional win this year at Waterloo.