The Regional Wars

[shawny963]

I See what you are getting at, but I was trying to provide an accurate representation of a winning alliance at a regional. The captain of a regional doesnt just get to pick the two best teams, they must make intellegent decisions from a field of remaining robots. I guess I think that some regionals may have a few incredibly strong teams(type a), and others a well rounded field of good teams(type b). The question isnt what regional has the most insanely powerful teams, rather which is most difficult to win. By comparing winning alliances, you can gauge the difficulty of winning different regionals, fielded with different types of teams. I guess I would like to see if it is more difficult to win type a or b. Not which regional has the 3 best teams attending.

[suneel112]

I know its not cool to be egocentric, but here goes:

The Midwest IS WHERE ITS AT!!! LITERALLY In terms of robotics, the Midwest won at least two years in a row, one year with the winning alliance being made up ENTIRELY of Midwest teams

2003 (Houston, Texas): 469 (Las Guerrillas; Bloomfield Hills, MI), 111 (Wildstang; Schaumburg, IL) and 65 (The Huskie Brigade; Pontiac, MI)

2004 (Atlanta, Georgia): 71 (Team Hammond (aka Beatty); Hammond, IN) , 494 (The Martians; Goodrich, MI), 435 (The Robodogs; Raleigh, NC) 2 of 3 were from the midwest.

2005 (Atlanta, Georgia): 461 (Westside Boiler Invasion; West Lafayette, IN), ???, ???

(the last one was just an egocentric prediction)

Anyways, now that I responded with all my egotism, I think its time to get that out and just say that there are great, strong regionals everywhere!

(as long as everywhere means Evanston, IL; Ypsilanti, MI; or Cleveland, OH)

[Pin Man]

Originally Posted by Andy Grady

Atlanta was very cool for me because for the first time in 3 years, I was able to meet and have some excelent discussions with some of my midwestern counterparts. During these discussions, I came to one big conclusion....what happened to the northeast this year? Sure we had a couple of teams make a good run at it, but the finals were a Michigan and Indiana dominated set of matches! Over the years I think that there has been a definate split in FIRST reguarding the game style and teams in the region...i separate them into 4 major groups.

Northeast: Primarly a defensive region. Great past national champions such as Gael Force, Tigerbolt, Raider Robotix, and Rage and Aces High among others. A very competitive region where everyone is out for blood at the regionals and offseason competitions.

Midwest: Has quickly become the powerhouse region. Primarily an offensive oriented region, with champions like Beatty and Hammond (4 times over), the Technokats, Wildstang, Sunny Delight (now extinct), and Juggernauts among others. From the outside, seems to be quite a tight knit group...very competitive on the inside.

South: A good mix of offensive and defensive robots. Teams like Baxter Bomb Squad, Heatwave, Cortez High School, Space Coast, and other oldies make for an excelent competitiveness.

West: Another strong offensive division with a few very solid defensive teams. Home of the Cheesy Poofs, Kingman, GRT, among others. Region thus far has been pretty much dominated by the Poofs and Kingman, but other teams are starting to show some good strength.

You can almost see the rivalry forming between the regions. I know that in the northeast, very often we talk of knocking the midwest off the pedistil (sp?.) that they have been sitting on as of late...makes for some very exciting matches and great trash talking

Now, the question I pose to everyone is this...

What do you think of an event that would bring teams together from each of these regions to decide who is the "King" of regions. Very similar to the Ryder Cup in golf? I think it would be very cool if you could manage to get all those teams in one place for something like that.

I never looked at it like that but now that I think of it you're right... hmmm... That would be cool to have some sort of competition and for the northeast to take it all back!!!

[Solace]

Originally Posted by Andy Grady

Northeast: Primarly a defensive region. Great past national champions such as Gael Force, Tigerbolt, Raider Robotix, and Rage and Aces High among others. A very competitive region where everyone is out for blood at the regionals and offseason competitions.

out for blood? That's putting it a bit mildly, if you ask me.

[Bill Moore]

Originally Posted by David Bridge

Just for example, 177s alliance won the philly regional, but since then one team that stands out in my mind that improved A LOT was MOE... for that reason we picked them to be on our galileo alliance.

The reason MOE had so much improvement from Trenton to Philly to Atlanta is because our Competition and Autonomous Team literally spent every day working on controlling the robot better. The number of hours spent by those two teams was tremendous, and it showed by how well the robot improved through each of the competitions we attended. Even now, the Autonomous Team is still tweaking code for our off-season activities. Look out for us at PARC!

[Pin Man]

Originally Posted by suneel112

I know its not cool to be egocentric, but here goes:

The Midwest IS WHERE ITS AT!!! LITERALLY In terms of robotics, the Midwest won at least two years in a row, one year with the winning alliance being made up ENTIRELY of Midwest teams

2003 (Houston, Texas): 469 (Las Guerrillas; Bloomfield Hills, MI), 111 (Wildstang; Schaumburg, IL) and 65 (The Huskie Brigade; Pontiac, MI)

2004 (Atlanta, Georgia): 71 (Team Hammond (aka Beatty); Hammond, IN) , 494 (The Martians; Goodrich, MI), 435 (The Robodogs; Raleigh, NC) 2 of 3 were from the midwest.

2005 (Atlanta, Georgia): 461 (Westside Boiler Invasion; West Lafayette, IN), ???, ???

(the last one was just an egocentric prediction)

Anyways, now that I responded with all my egotism, I think its time to get that out and just say that there are great, strong regionals everywhere!

(as long as everywhere means Evanston, IL; Ypsilanti, MI; or Cleveland, OH)

I think you mean 88, 126, and 173 in 2005 for Atlanta...

[abeD]

The south definately has a reputation as being one of the most brutal and defensive regionals out there. Teams like 233 and 79 are just two that i can think off the top of my head that are pretty descriptive of what a good southern robot is like.

[dtk]

Of course I know this idea won't happen but anyway... I think the best way to pick the regional teams would be to nominate a captain for each region and let them pick a lineup. Sure deserving teams get left out but selecting teams solely on regional wins or finalist appearances is quite flawed. Not only is there an extremely large amount of luck involved but due to the nature of picking alliances it’s unlikely that all the best teams are represented in the finals. Even if the #1 seed is the best team and picks the second best team at the competition their third partner will at best be the 17th best team. Keep in mind I think any team that makes it to the elimination rounds is deserving, my point is that often the best teams get spread out amongst the alliances. So I say just pick one of the big names, or a group of them if you prefer, from each region and let them fill out the rosters.

So, I would have the regional captain select 10 teams to represent that region and, just for fun, 2 alternates. The format would consist of a best of five matches between two regions with the winner moving on. Each team plays at most one match per round. Lineups are declared at the beginning of each round with all five of the two-team pairings and the match # they will play in.


Although I think you should just give the Midwest the trophy now.

111 & 494 – Worked at nationals.
93 & 67 – 93 catches ALL the balls, 67 caps it and hangs.
33 & 111 – 33 fills the goal, 111 caps and hangs.
45 & 47 – Lots of small balls, 45 caps while 47 hangs.
461 & 469 – With both goals full of balls and doubled why hang?


Also please keep in mind this is a quick list during my break from circuits. I definitely forgot some teams and, with only 10 spots, didn’t get to put in all the great ones I did remember. I would expect anyone given the job of filling out this team for real would have quite the hard time.

As far as getting all those teams in one place, well, that would pretty much be impossible but to save on hotel costs everyone can stay at my house! I do think a location could be found within driving distance for a Midwest vs. NE showdown but those Cali teams are so far away...

btw... what about the Canadians, or the Brazilians for that matter.

-dtk

[Berserker]

Originally Posted by suneel112

I know its not cool to be egocentric, but here goes:

The Midwest IS WHERE ITS AT!!! LITERALLY In terms of robotics, the Midwest won at least two years in a row, one year with the winning alliance being made up ENTIRELY of Midwest teams

but this year the northeast had a lot of really good robots....

365, 222, 25, 175, 303, 11, 237, 88, 56, and many others

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by suneel112

I know its not cool to be egocentric, but here goes:

The Midwest IS WHERE ITS AT!!! LITERALLY In terms of robotics, the Midwest won at least two years in a row, one year with the winning alliance being made up ENTIRELY of Midwest teams

2003 (Houston, Texas): 469 (Las Guerrillas; Bloomfield Hills, MI), 111 (Wildstang; Schaumburg, IL) and 65 (The Huskie Brigade; Pontiac, MI)

2004 (Atlanta, Georgia): 71 (Team Hammond (aka Beatty); Hammond, IN) , 494 (The Martians; Goodrich, MI), 435 (The Robodogs; Raleigh, NC) 2 of 3 were from the midwest.

2005 (Atlanta, Georgia): 461 (Westside Boiler Invasion; West Lafayette, IN), ???, ???

(the last one was just an egocentric prediction)

Anyways, now that I responded with all my egotism, I think its time to get that out and just say that there are great, strong regionals everywhere!

(as long as everywhere means Evanston, IL; Ypsilanti, MI; or Cleveland, OH)

I want to continue suneel's post (I'm going to stick with the midwest / northeast rivalry here, so I'm going to leave out the teams from the other regions) ...

2003 finalists: 494 (midwest), 25 (northeast)

2002 Champions: 71, 66 (midwest), and 173 (northest).
2002 Finalist: 308 (midwest), 311 (northeast)

2001 Champions: 71 (midwest), 365 (northeast)
2001 Finalists: 111, 33, 349, 144 (midwest)

2000 Champions: 25 (northeast)
2000 Finalists: 111 (midwest), 126 (northeast)
(sorry, my memory is pretty fuzzy from 2000 and 1999)

1999 Champions 176 (northeast), 1 (midwest)
1999 Finalists: 111, 45 (midwest)

1998 Champion: 45 (midwest)
1998 Finalist: 121 (northeast)

1997 Champion: 71 (midwest)
1997 Finalist: 47 (midwest)
(Note: 1997 team numbers are the CURRENT numbers for those teams).

So, since 1997 (since I've been involved in FIRST), the number of championship and finalist participants have been (according to my fuzzy memory):

Midwest: 22
Northeast: 8

Granted, I think I may have missed a couple in 1999 and 2000, but it appears the midwest has the edge. Hey Andy, thanks for getting the ball rolling on the trash-talking thing.

[Andy Grady]

Originally Posted by Chris Hibner

Granted, I think I may have missed a couple in 1999 and 2000, but it appears the midwest has the edge. Hey Andy, thanks for getting the ball rolling on the trash-talking thing.

You see Chris...we in the Northeast don't dwell on the past. To us, its all about next year (i.e. Boston Red Sox Fans). By the way, you missed Chaos in 2000, Gael Force in 1995, Tigerbolt in 1996, and Gael Force in 1992. Thank you, come again!

The northeast will return next year, full force...be afraid, be very afraid!

-Andy Grady

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by Chris Hibner

Granted, I think I may have missed a couple in 1999 and 2000, but it appears the midwest has the edge. Hey Andy, thanks for getting the ball rolling on the trash-talking thing.

To fill in some of the blanks...

The 2000 National Finalists were Teams 126, 131 and 102, all from the Northeast

The 1999 National Champions included Team 48, from the Midwest.

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by Andy Grady

You see Chris...we in the Northeast don't dwell on the past. To us, its all about next year (i.e. Boston Red Sox Fans). By the way, you missed Chaos in 2000, Gael Force in 1995, Tigerbolt in 1996, and Gael Force in 1992. Thank you, come again!

The northeast will return next year, full force...be afraid, be very afraid!

-Andy Grady

I guess my memory wasn't too bad (only missing Chaos in 2000). I guess I'll bump that record to 22-9. I only listed the years in which I was at the competition - I joined in 1997. So sorry about missing the "ancient history" part.

You should try and make it to the IRI this year to see how the midwest teams do it up. Oh right! You were at nationals, so by watching the finals you already saw how the midwest teams do it. (This is getting fun!)

Okay, Andy - I'm going to stop now (I promise). You should know that I respect the northeast as much as anyone. You guys are great. Seriously though, you should come to the IRI. It's a great time.

[JVN]

Originally Posted by Andy Grady

The northeast will return next year, full force...be afraid, be very afraid!

-Andy Grady

Off seasons.
229 + 126 vs ANYBODY.

You up for it?
It's freakin' unbeatable man.

JV

[Andy Grady]

Originally Posted by Chris Hibner

I guess my memory wasn't too bad (only missing Chaos in 2000). I guess I'll bump that record to 22-9. I only listed the years in which I was at the competition - I joined in 1997. So sorry about missing the "ancient history" part.

Ohhhhhh how convenient that you didn't start FIRST until after the age when the Northeast dominated all of FIRST! We are planning on making our move soon enough, dont you worry!

Who knows...maybe at a certain possible undisclosed special event in 2005, we might be able to find out who really is the best region once and for all.

By the way, you can keep talking trash all ya want...I think its fun, and it adds to the rivalry...just as long as it stays fun and there are no personal attacks or anything like that.

-Andy Grady