Chairman's Preview Week 1: Sieges in the North and South

[Jacob Bendicksen]

Hey CD!

Welcome to our Chairman’s predictions for Week 1! We’ve been reading Looking Forward’s posts along with everyone else for a while, and we wanted to do something similar for Chairman’s (but also different). We believe that there’s tons of interesting stories, rivalries, and matchups in the history of the Chairman’s Award, and our hope for this series is to help the FIRST community see the story behind the banners. As with Looking Forward, all of these predictions are based on our opinions and the best data we have available, and are not comprehensive -- if you don’t like them, go prove them wrong!

Also, if you’re interested in helping us out with the non-PNW district areas, please let us know -- we would love to be able to do the full writeup for every event, but don’t have the bandwidth or knowledge of every area to be able to do it right now. Beyond districts, we’re always looking for more information or tips, so if there’s a team in your area who has upped their game in the last year, we’d love to hear about it. If you’re interested in contributing or have a tip for us, please reach out via PM or email.

Good luck this week!

Jacob Bendicksen and Nick Aarestad (aka cadandcookies)

And without further ado, the predictions:

Regionals:

San Diego features two solid HoF candidates, 399 and 2486, trying to take home a Week 1 blue banner. 399 is the local favorite, and you probably know them from RoboProm and their fantastic Tumblr, but 2486 has two more RCAs under their belts, and they’re headed to SoCal with a new regional to show for their offseason efforts. 1266 could be a dark horse - they haven’t won an RCA since 2012, but they’ve won 3 RCAs and 4 Engineering Inspiration Awards, so look to them for a potential upset.

Two teams have consistently battled for the Lake Superior Regional Chairman’s Award crown-- 1714 from Wisconsin and 1816 from Minnesota. Both teams have previously brought the award home from this event. Looking at the stats, MORE Robotics is coming in with 5 RCA and EI wins both, and the Green Machine is bringing 4 Chairman’s banners and three EI trophies, so they’re looking pretty even. These two can’t quite divvy up the prize yet though-- there are some teams who have been bubbling under for a while now and are likely gunning for their first win-- 2052, 2177, 2977, and 4607 all fall in this category, with fantastic programs. If any of them want to break through, they’ll certainly have to earn it.

Northern Lights is looking like a showdown between 2512, the hometown favorites and defending RCA winners, and 3132, flying in all the way from Australia. 3132 has easily the best Chairman’s program in the Land Down Under, probably the best in the Southern Hemisphere, with a brand new regional that they started last year (how many teams can say they started the first regional on a continent?), so it’ll be interesting to see how they stack up against the local competition. 2500 could give both 2512 and 3132 a run for their money - they’ve earned six Engineering Inspiration Awards, including two last year, so this could be their year to bring home an RCA.

Greater Toronto Central will see some stiff competition this weekend for a Chairman’s blue banner, headlined by local favorites 771 and perennial HoF contenders 1511. Both teams are coming in hot with wins in at least the past two years, so this should be a duel of two Chairman’s titans who are sure to bring their A-game. Other teams to watch for include 772, 781, and 1325 with a potential dark horse bid. Each of them has been able to pull out a win at the extremely competitive Ontario regionals in the past few years, which means no matter how tough the competition looks at GTR Central, we can’t count them out.

Israel is an interesting regional to look at for Chairman’s -- generally over here in the Americas we only get to see a few teams a year at events. That being said, this year it looks likely to come down to 2630 who struck like, well, a thunderbolt last year with an RCA win at Israel and an EI win at the Midwest Regional. They’ll be going up against 3211, The Y Team, who will be looking to replicate their 2014 and 2013 RCA wins. Our dark horse might be 1574, MisCar, who has brought home a couple of Engineering Inspiration awards and is surely eying the RCA.

PNW:

The likely favorite heading into Auburn Mountainview is 1983. The Skunks have a four-year Chairman’s streak to defend, including wins at both PNW DCMPs so far, but they needed a third district to win a DCA last year, so they’ll need their A-game to bring home a Chairman’s blue banner against a strong field including 1318, 2046, 2522, 2557, and 2907. 2522 and 2557 have both won RCAs in the PNW district, and 1318, 2046, and 2907 all have DCAs in the past two years. Long story short, this event is stacked for Chairman’s, and any one of these teams could easily walk away with a District Chairman’s Award.

West Valley should be a showdown between 1595, EI winners at last year’s DCMP, and 4125, the only team at the event with a Chairman’s Award on their resumé. 1595 has spent some time in China in the past few years along with 525, 694, and 987, so they’ll try to persuade the judges not to give the award to 4125, a team with a significant influence (read: started) across all FIRST programs in their area.

CHS:

Northern Virginia
Potentially better than #1, plus a 2015 RCA: 1111
2 years of EI hoping to pick up their first CA win since 2010: 612

MAR:

Mt. Olive
Hosting the event, but they’re MORTal: 11
2014 MAR RCA winners: 303
Won the Safety Award at 4 out of 5 events last year: 1676
Hot off an Einstein appearance: 1923

Hatboro-Horsham
Defending MAR RCA ready for another year: 708
2 RCAs in 3 years: 1218
Looking to translate recent EI success into their first CA since 2013: 2016
Eligible HoF nobility: 341

FiM:

Kettering
Brought their first DCA home last year, looking for another: 1322
Wants to prove they’re literally #1: 1
An EI last year, looking to upgrade their hardware: 5084
Looking to strike gold after a RAS last year: 5460

Southfield
Looking to keep up a burgeoning streak: 280
Stampeding towards another DCMP RCA: 548
Looking to soar from EI to DCA: 3322
Brought home a DCMP RAS last year, now the gloves are off: 5498

Standish-Sterling
Recent DCA winners looking for another: 862, 1502
2015 district EI winners wanting to break into the DCA club: 2619

Waterford
Buzzing for another DCA banner: 33
Defending DCMP RCA winners: 2137
Plenty of DCAs and looking for a slice of the RCA pi: 1718
Looking to start their bid for their first RCA since 2011: 1023
Local HoF dignitaries keeping things civil: 51 and 67

NC:

Guilford
2014 North Carolina RCA wanting to translate that into districts: 2642
2014 RCA/2015 EI/2016 hopefuls: 2655

NE:

Waterbury
Defending NE RCA winners: 558
Newly eligible HoF member: 236
2 consecutive years of district EI and wants to step it up: 228

Granite State
Winding up for another year: 3467
2014 NE DCMP RCA winners trying to play their cards right: 78
2013 RCA, wants another: 131

[bam-bam]

You can't say Chairman's without mentioning 234... who will be at Guilford.

[Ginger Power]

Love the analysis! Thanks for the mention. It'll be exciting to see how things turn out.

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by bam-bam

You can't say Chairman's without mentioning 234... who will be at Guilford.

Like we said, we're a little underinformed and understaffed at the moment, so we may have missed a few things! Thanks for pointing that out!

Edit: This is what I get for not living in a districts area

[tindleroot]

Keep in mind that teams that are traveling to inter-district play can not win Chairman's or EI. Neither 1501 nor 234 will leave with those awards from NC.

[Jardanium]

Love the analysis spanning across the globe! Best of luck to all teams competing for RCA this weekend!

[Jacob Bendicksen]

Originally Posted by tindleroot

Keep in mind that teams that are traveling to inter-district play can not win Chairman's or EI. Neither 1501 nor 234 will leave with those awards from NC.

Caught that for 234, but not 1501 -- I'll update it. Thanks!

[orangemoore]

Originally Posted by Jacob Bendicksen

Caught that for 234, but not 1501 -- I'll update it. Thanks!

It seems that 1501 isn't trying for Chairman's this year at all.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...18&postcount=6

[Debbie]

We did not submit for Waterford.

[Anthony Galea]

16 teams submitted at Southfield. I'm not sure where to post this, but there was a thread about how many teams were submitting at each event.

[AndrewPospeshil]

Originally Posted by 3175student17

16 teams submitted at Southfield. I'm not sure where to post this, but there was a thread about how many teams were submitting at each event.

I believe Mr. cadandcookies just wants people to Private Message him that information, if I'm not mistaken. (I already beat you to MISOU though!)

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by 3175student17

16 teams submitted at Southfield. I'm not sure where to post this, but there was a thread about how many teams were submitting at each event.

Thanks for the information! Like Andrew said, in the future you can PM me or comment directly on the spreadsheet.