Midwest = Offense?

[The Lucas]

Looking at the standings after a Week 3 Friday of competitions, I noticed that the Ranking Points at the 3 Midwest regionals (Detroit, Midwest and Boilermaker) are very high. The combined average Ranking Points for the 3 regionals is 25.71 pts. Boilermaker has the highest average Ranking pts with 26.95, followed by Midwest (26.77), and Detroit (23.67). All 3 of these regionals are relatively small (Detroit-33 teams, Midwest-30, & Boilermaker-29).

This brings up a few questions:
Do these Midwest teams...............
concentrate more on offense than defense?
have a higher percentage of shooters?
shoot better?
dump more?
have better strategy?
have better Autonomous Routines?
play Autonomous Defense?
get more bots on the ramp?
score more for their opponents?
make more evenly-matched random alliance pairings?

[George A.]

I've actually noticed this trend in the past. Where the Midwestern teams and even some of the west coast teams rely heavily on outscoring their opponents, whereas the east coast teams rely more heavily on defense to stop their opponents to score, that way they don't have to score as much.

I don't have the statistics to prove this, but from my experience from traveling to different regionals that seems to be the case.

[Joel J]

I saw minimal defense today, while watching the MWR.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Seems the flu isnt the only thing that's contagious anymore.

[Bill_Hancoc]

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

Seems the flu isnt the only thing that's contagious anymore.

maybe a first wiki enrty needs to be added???

[Alex Cormier]

Well the math for the FLR is the average was 21.318. There was at the most i think 3/4 non-shooters out of the 30 teams there.

[Dan Petrovic]

Yep, I'll believe it.

Last year at the BAE GSR. The finalist teams both had powerhouses and one defender.

At the Buckeye Regional, both finalist teams had all three bots scoring like crazy.

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

I would like to share that BMR has some major powerhouse teams.
#135, #1038, #292, #1501, and my lovely #461 have all had good shooting sprees (off the top of my head) and many others as well. All of these teams are high-ranked.

Many of the bots in the midwest that choose defense sometimes choose it as their main role. We have a few of those here - 1747 is a particular defense maniac, they rock it out. Rookie team with a great attitude and excellent corner goal capability.

[EricRobodox]

I think us West Coast teams do try and focus on offense more. More of the mentality of, how can you win if you didnt score any points. I think our team, although may not be the best at it, is a good defensive player. It is a pretty good offensive player (once again, may not be the very best), but West Coast Mentality i think is to score more than block. But this year, if you have two good shooters, it takes three robots to block. At least from the matches i have seen. One shooter, one blocker and its interesting. Two shooters needs three robots to block efficiently as usually the shooter (if shooting) will be next to each other, which then dont allow blocking or pushing from two of the four sides of each robot. So, i think offense is a good strategy for this years game over defense, which gives a small, not at all large, edge to West Coast Mentality.

[George A.]

The was I predicted it in another forum (and for the most part have been right) the final allainces are going to comprise a really awesome shooter, a really awesome herder/corral robot, and a robot that can do one of the other two but not as well, but is mainly there for it's offensive capabilities.



According to that I think FIRST was using this game to finally break through the line dividing the country and have West Coast and East Coast teams join together!

[Koko Ed]

It's been said time and again that the strongest robots reside in the midwest (in spite of the futile protests of the other regions the unraveling of the numerous championship banners bring silence to the critics). They are good at drivetrains and aparatures. They also understand strategy,which is a very underrated part of FIRST.
Hey, the Yankees have the best talent money can by but no championship to show for it in the last five years (life is good). If you have a robot that could push a Mack truck. Race up the ramp in under a second. Pickup and vomit out ball simultaneously within 5 seconds with pin poin t accuracy and is impossible to tip you could still taste defeat because you don't ration your time wisely, you don't use your partners well and really pay attention to what the clock or your opponents are doing and you get penalized alot because you never read the rules.

[Jherbie53]

I think the reason why Midwest and West Coast teams are usually better is that there are more teams in these areas. California has the most teams followed by Michigan, which means more teams that are competitive, especially at Great Lakes, Midwest, Buckeye, Boilermaker, Detroit, and West Michigan regionals in the Midwest and any of the West Coast regionals that are competitive. (I don't know which ones are.)

Another of the reasons that these teams might be better is that there is usually more businesses in these areas, which means more engineers to help the students. Also having Alumni that have were on the team 2-3 years helps, because there knowledge of how to play the games.

This years Boilermaker was competitive in the elimination rounds, but on Friday morning it didn't always look that way, until 135 came out to play. Even though there are more teams in the Midwest and West Coast, everyone has an equal chance of going to nationals and wining.

[Jack Jones]

Originally Posted by Jherbie53

I think the reason why Midwest and West Coast teams are usually better is that there are more teams in these areas. California has the most teams followed by Michigan, which means more teams that are competitive, especially at Great Lakes, Midwest, Buckeye, Boilermaker, Detroit, and West Michigan regionals in the Midwest and any of the West Coast regionals that are competitive. (I don't know which ones are.)

Another of the reasons that these teams might be better is that there is usually more businesses in these areas, which means more engineers to help the students. Also having Alumni that have were on the team 2-3 years helps, because there knowledge of how to play the games.

This years Boilermaker was competitive in the elimination rounds, but on Friday morning it didn't always look that way, until 135 came out to play. Even though there are more teams in the Midwest and West Coast, everyone has an equal chance of going to nationals and wining.

Right - two chances, slim and none.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Jack Jones

Right - two chances, slim and none.

Ah I'll take the East over the West any day.

[Elyse Holguin]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

Ah I'll take the East over the West any day.

oh let's not do the regional wars here... haha. but before you click the link, midwest is so much better.