Philly top 5

[Peter Matteson]

It's that time folks lets start talking about next week in Philly and who we think the top 5 teams there will be. I read people saying it will be a strong regional, now I want to see you back it by listing the top teams going and why.

Since I'm starting this thread, my choices are:
365 - When do they have a bad year? I mean it, really?
716 - Strong low baller.
173 - If they have the technical issue from UTC fixed will be quite dangerous.

The rest of the teams though I haven't seen yet!

[Greg Perkins]

84...bad luck in rochester, should rebound really well.

[The Lucas]

I cant pick just 5 and here is why......
My current tally for Regional Champs and Finalists at Philly:
3 Regional Champs
5 Regional Finalists
.....among only 46 Teams

Regional Champs:
103 - 1st overall pick at NJ, great long range shooter
272 - #4 Alliance Capt at Buckeye, can't wait to see them
177 - #5 Alliance Capt at UTC (I dont have to tell you, Pete)

Regional Finalists:
486 - 2nd overall pick at NJ, shares the highest score of year with 137
250 - 2nd overall pick at FLR
357 - #5 Alliance Capt at Florida, gotta love the wheels
1370 - best defensive bot at Pitt IMHO, high shooter too
1218 - nice turret high shooter at Chesapeake (you probably remember their 2004 Champ Finalist bot)

Others to watch for:
56 - do-it-all bot with good showing at both NJ and Chesapeake
84 - haven't seen the bot but I have heard from FLR that it is a great design
157 - impressive on Boston Webcast, currently ranked #2
173 - It's Rage, nough said
341 - great shooter according to Buzz scouting reports

Sorry if I missed any Champs or Finalists out there.

Originally Posted by Dzdconfusd

365 - When do they have a bad year? I mean it, really?

Bad year? Every year is a good year in FIRST. It's building robots for fun and going to comps with other FIRST people; robot performance is just a bonus. Of course, Bobcats (177) made 2004 a better year by inviting us into their Galileo Finalist alliance.

[379Robocat]

What a lot of people don 't seem to realize or notice is that there is a lot of robots that are good this year. This year I know shooting in the center goal seems to be everyones concern but what people need to watch out are for the strong defensive robots. We have competed in 2 regionals so far and it seems that a good alliance needs to consist of two shooters and a strong defensive corner goal scorer. This year everyone seems to want to leave us out of decent robots. I'm not sure if it is just because our reputation of not having a good consistent robot every year or what. In the two regionals we seemed to be on the top list of defensive corner goal shooters but the top teams don't seem to notice us. When picking alliances if there is a team that is not in the top 15 but are good is probably because they either didn't have a strong alliance or not all the robots showed up. I'm not trying to brag about our robot or anything but we are a really strong robot with 2-speed transmissions, fast and good scorers. On that note here are my top 5:

272 (again seen them in cleveland)
365 (always good robot)
341 (but looks like it needs hp to load the robot and that can be stopped)
157 (seems to have a good solid robot)
177 (good corner scorer but needs to watch not going into corner goal to far)

These are my picks based on past preformances and websites. In previous competitions it was all michgan teams except us or all teams from ohio or west/north west. Good luck to everyone and see you thursday.

[Freddy Schurr]

103- Amazing Shooter
365- Great Hopper with Shooter
84- Our alliance partners at PARC last year and overall amazing team
486- Amazing at NJ, the collector and the shooter work good.
433- THE FIREBIRDS, that all I will say!
204- My team, hard-working students and rocking mentors combine make for a superb team.
1394- Is all together the word of Gracious Professionalism!
1712- Rookie Team, can't wait to see them in action.

Other teams, 316, 56, 177, 272, 341, and 303 I liked!

[Jeremy L]

"When picking alliances if there is a team that is not in the top 15 but are good is probably because they either didn't have a strong alliance or not all the robots showed up."

The beautiful thing about alliance selections this year with the 1-8 then 8-1 picking is the balance that can occur on alliances as opposed to previous years. As for our team at UTC, we had a pretty interesting time picking our 5th seed alliance. Aces high (176) was our first pick, and was not in the top 10 after qualifiers, and our second pick was the Uberbots (1124), which finished the qualifiers 34th! After winning the regional and defeating the 1, 3 and 4 seeds along the way, it became clear that good alliances were determined by good robots, not seeding. A robot that is consistent can easily end up in first place or last place, but performance in elimination rounds depends on the individual robot's qualification performance, not whether or not it got lucky in qualifier pairings.

Scouting has always been an integral part of a successful alliance, and our team's method in particular has become one of our strong points. Knowing your allies and your opponents equally well can be the difference between victory and defeat.

[Peter Matteson]

Originally Posted by The Lucas

.....among only 46 Teams

Regional Champs:
103 - 1st overall pick at NJ, great long range shooter
272 - #4 Alliance Capt at Buckeye, can't wait to see them
177 - #5 Alliance Capt at UTC (I dont have to tell you, Pete)

I missed 272 as a regional winner going to Philly. For some reason I thought they weren't on the list for Philly this year.

Based on my quick scan we won't be adding anymore winners/finalists from this weekend. Although team 358, normally a Philly team, won SBLI.

Should be a good show this week. I look forward to seeing everyone bright and early Thursday.

[jagman2882]

Originally Posted by The Lucas

84 - haven't seen the bot but I have heard from FLR that it is a great design

they have an amazing drive train, pushed everyone around at FLR, they gave us trouble in the finals(not enough) they are a REALLY strong defender