2006 Most Competitive Regional

[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by lukevanoort

Most competitive, I don't know. Most interesting competition, VCU. Large, first week regional, so everybody is trying to figure out what works and what doesn't as well as getting a feel for this year's refereeing.

I suppose VCU was OK if you weren't able to make it Portland the first weekend.

[Gene F]

With all that's been learned during the first 4 weeks I expect the fifth week to be the most exciting. It's hard to say which will be the most exciting/competitive. But take a look at the teams that are attending the Palmetto. It's a pretty impressive list. 3 Reginal champions, 3 Regional Finalists and 14 teams with elimination experience.

[JamesBrown]

BAE lost alot of its older teams this year, The new New England regional in Boston however looks amazing.

40, 69, 88, 121, 126, 157, 213 Those 7 teams are basically a Who's who of FIRST in New England ( Ok so were missing a few i.e. 190, 131 ...)

Then throw in 233 coming up after seeding 1st and winning chairmans at the Florida Regional.

383 is coming all the way from Brazil.

75 will be up from NJ

That gives Boston a great group of teams for this year and it will only get better With 14 (yes 14) rookies and another 6 second year teams (Including 1511 the championship Rookie all stars last year) This regional will only get better.

Well thats my $.02 (ok maybe it was more than 2 cents)

James.

[Gearhead.]

I am very suprised and disappointed only three 'great' teams were listed for the NJ regional. It seems to be overlooked. This year was not as competitive as others, but the NJ regional is ALWAYS one of the top two most competitive. I guess a lot of you don't know anything about 2003. The top two robots in the nation were there. Team 102 and Team 25. Team 25 got second at nationals and had awful alliances - they would have won with better people in their division. Team 102 had to fight the parents and didn't have the money to attend nationals, but if you guys want to see pictures, I will try to get the reposted on our team site. This year, although it was not the most competitive year, veteran teams: 25, 11, 102, 103, 56, 87, 75 all attend the NJ regional. Plus, the team 25 and 103 tandem in the finals along with 1279 (my same-town catholic team rivals) were able to post over 80 pts. every finals match. The qualifying rounds were all high scoring, with a dozen over 50 pts. for each team with only a couple points difference. With 60 some teams, close matches like this proves it was a very good regional.

[Joel J]

GTR is going to be the best regional of 2006, IMO..

[Tetraman]

Originally Posted by 1derboy

I am going to go with Buckeye. I know it may be biased but competion was very deep. The number 1 (135) and 2 (1024) seeds at Boilermaker were both there. Midwest runner up 141 was there. The number three seed in Detroit was there (703). Strong teams like 123, 494, 48, 461 were also there. It may not have had many teams but all the teams were strong.

I'll agree...Buckeye's seeding matches were very tough. Finals were very close and very exciteing, but the seeding matches were difficult to get though.

[Koko Ed]

I'm not sure which regional is the most competitive but looking over week 5 it is obviously the most competitive week!

[Jack Jones]

Competitive is a relative term. There is no way to compare week one to week five and say that week five is more competitive just because the teams have their stuff together by then. It would be like saying that pro baseball’s World Series is more competitive than the Little League World Series because the pros play at a much higher level, which is true, but that doesn’t make the competition any more intense.

With that, I say look at the 12 teams in Championship final rounds in recent years and count up the regionals they attended. You will find that GLR wins by a landslide.

I’ll go on record as saying that the same will be true this year. More yet, I’ll say that at least one of the champs will have come out of GLR – same as they have for years.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Jack Jones

Competitive is a relative term. There is no way to compare week one to week five and say that week five is more competitive just because the teams have their stuff together by then. It would be like saying that pro baseball’s World Series is more competitive than the Little League World Series because the pros play at a much higher level, which is true, but that doesn’t make the competition any more intense.

With that, I say look at the 12 teams in Championship final rounds in recent years and count up the regionals they attended. You will find that GLR wins by a landslide.

I’ll go on record as saying that the same will be true this year. More yet, I’ll say that at least one of the champs will have come out of GLR – same as they have for years.

That's because in the past years there has always been one champ comming from Michigan.

[Jack Jones]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

That's because in the past years there has always been one champ comming from Michigan.

Ed rests my case. Michigan Rocks!

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Jack Jones

Ed rests my case. Michigan Rocks!

Actually West Michigan might be a better regional than GLR but yeah Michigan rules FIRST.

[sanddrag]

If by most competitive, you mean having to play a 3 on 2 match in qualifiers on Friday and a 3 on 1 match in qualifiers on Saturday, then Southern California would be it. The amount of teams who missed their matches was just appalling.

If you mean competitive as in even the Innovation in Control award winners did not get picked for finals even when seeded in the top 24, Southern California is it. The lack of in depth scouting by teams and the lack of preparedness by some alliance captains and their first pick representatives was just appalling. In a few cases, it seems like teams just took a roll of the dice in determining who to pick.

[codeoftherobot]

While Davis/Sacramento Regional has never been a "power team" regional, ours was competitive, especially in the final rounds. Both final teams were evenly matched with 1 excellent defensive bot, 1 excellent shooter and 1 excellent corner dumper (consistently 10 or more). It went back and forth for 3 matches and was very well played. Even with some technical difficulties with some bots, all robots played in the championship rounds.

I remember an excellent play by the winning alliance when one of their partners died, another teammate came up behind, pushed them up the ramp and then finished the game with 3 robots up on the ramp. It was truly an amazing spectacle. People were out of their seats cheering and screaming. That's probably one of the nice things about having a regional where one team isn't dominating the scoring. Everyone gets an equal chance of winning and playing and the crowd loves it. They can cheer for pretty much anyone and there was a lot of cheering at Davis, along with 245's balsa wood airplanes that flooded the field after the final rounds.

[Schneidie]

I think a regional depends on teh year, but NE and the midwest are supossed to be really competitive.

[StandingInRain0]

In the Wisconsin Regional, the last final rounds looked like it was going to be a battle to the finish. Also, a couple of the final alliances did a lot better than anyone thought. I'd say Wisconisn was a tough regional.