2007 St. Louis Regional

[Richard_Wallace]

Team 1250 from Dearborn, MI will be at the St. Louis Regional this year. We are all exciting to come and compete against some of the best Mid-Western teams in all of FIRST. …

We read in many threads that this or that regional has a strong field, great offensive teams, long history, etc.

I thought it would be fun to analyze the strength of the 2007 STL field using two easily available metrics for each participating team:
(1) experience measured in previous FRC events, and
(2) awards won as listed on the FRC website.

Clearly we will have some very experienced teams that have won many awards. We will also have seven rookie teams. So what do the averages look like?

Including the whole 2007 STL field, the average team experience is 6 FRC events and the average team has previously won 4.6 awards.

How much are these averages influenced by the top teams and rookies? Re-computing without 45, 217, and the rookies, the average team experience is still 6 FRC events and the average team has won 4 awards.

I don’t know how these averages compare to those for other regionals, and I’ll leave that calculation as an exercise for anyone who is interested. The 2007 STL averages look very strong to me.

And oh, yeah, the 2007 STL field also includes ten teams that have previously been regional winners, six that have previously won regional chairman’s awards, and six with at least one mentor who has previously been a regional Woodie Flowers Award finalist.

All things considered, 2007 STL is a very strong field of teams.

[Hieb]

While it’s great to see a number of powerhouse teams making their way to St. Louis this year, on a personal note I’ll miss the Bomb Squad, team 16. In my first FIRST event 3 years ago they were the first team stop by our pit and welcome us. They fully embodied gracious professionalism, and got our team off to a great start with a first round victory. Of course, they followed up by thoroughly defeating us in the next 2 rounds, but that’s beside the point.
So good luck Bomb Squad in Kansas City, we’ll miss you.

[pludodog]

395 is looking forward to making the trip out to the Gateway City this year, it should be an exciting regional.

[GMKlenklen]

Yay!!! I have compleated the first step in starting MY OWN FIRST team!!! Now we just have to find that $6k Hum…

[Richard_Wallace]

The truly awesome field for St. Louis looks this way, with registration closed and a couple of days to go before initial event payment deadline:

Sixteen St. Louis area teams, including three St. Louis area rookies:
931, 1094, 1098, 1178, 1182, 1208, 1288, 1315, 1329, 1444, 1451, 1658, 1706, 1985, 2014, 2219

Seven Kansas City area teams, including three Kansas City area rookies:
1723, 1752, 1769, 1939, 1986, 2011, 2109

Five returning St. Louis Regional veterans (three or more previous appearances):
525 (IA), 547 (TN), 939 (SD), 967 (IA), 1625 (IL)

Nine veterans with less than three previous St. Louis Regional appearances:
45 (IN), 148 (TX), 217 (MI), 292 (IN), 461 (IN), 829 (IN), 1472 (LA), 1602 (MI), 1646 (IN)

And three more out-of-area rookies:
2133 (TN), 2167 (MO), 2177 (MN)

As usual, watch out for the rookies – they can and will surprise the unwary.

So we will have IA, IL, IN, LA, MI, MO, MN, KS, SD, TN, and TX represented at St. Louis this year – eleven states!

Caveat: Things can still change a little, registration rules being what they are.

[Richard_Wallace]

Nine veterans with less than three previous St. Louis Regional appearances:
45 (IN), 148 (TX), 217 (MI), 292 (IN), 461 (IN), 829 (IN), 1472 (LA), 1602 (MI), 1646 (IN)

Make that ten, with the addition of 1250, so now there are three MI teams in the 41 team field. And one team still pending; wonder who they are?

[Allison]

1747 is the team that is pending

[Richard_Wallace]

1747 is the team that is pending

Cool!

I was hoping all three of the Purdue FIRST teams would come to St. Louis.

[Eric_W_Jones]

Cool!

I was hoping all three of the Purdue FIRST teams would come to St. Louis.

1747 isn’t on the list yet, but I know I’m looking forward to heading west this year!

[Richard_Wallace]

Looks like some capacity has opened up for St. Louis:

St. Louis Regional
St. Charles, MO USA
Dates: 3/1/2007 - 3/3/2007
View the 41 teams registered for this event
Pending Teams: 4
Open Capacity: 6
Event Website

[GMKlenklen]

Is anyone going to be volunteering to set up a regional-wide scouting system?

I will as long as my programmers can figure it out!!!

[Sgraff_SRHS06]

The truly awesome field for St. Louis looks this way, with registration closed and a couple of days to go before initial event payment deadline:

Sixteen St. Louis area teams, including three St. Louis area rookies:
931, 1094, 1098, 1178, 1182, 1208, 1288, 1315, 1329, 1444, 1451, 1658, 1706, 1985, 2014, 2219

Seven Kansas City area teams, including three Kansas City area rookies:
1723, 1752, 1769, 1939, 1986, 2011, 2109

Five returning St. Louis Regional veterans (three or more previous appearances):
525 (IA), 547 (TN), 939 (SD), 967 (IA), 1625 (IL)

Nine veterans with less than three previous St. Louis Regional appearances:
45 (IN), 148 (TX), 217 (MI), 292 (IN), 461 (IN), 829 (IN), 1472 (LA), 1602 (MI), 1646 (IN)

And three more out-of-area rookies:
2133 (TN), 2167 (MO), 2177 (MN)

As usual, watch out for the rookies – they can and will surprise the unwary.

So we will have IA, IL, IN, LA, MI, MO, MN, KS, SD, TN, and TX represented at St. Louis this year – eleven states!

Caveat: Things can still change a little, registration rules being what they are.

Add one team from MD (888) currently pending with Chesapeake/Pitt Finals and a Western Michigan winner under its belt.

So its Roboiators follow Kats follow Chickens follow everyone else in the regional (however way you want to order it).

[Richard_Wallace]

The Rat Pack is looking at a trip to St. Louis this year. We want to do a Week 1 event, and we’ve heard nothing but good things about this regional. So, hopefully we’ll add Michigan to your list of states…

And the Rat Pack now appears on the list of confirmed teams for St. Louis, bringing the number of MI teams to three (217, 830, 1602). With three teams still pending. I think 1747 is one of them, and I’ve also heard that two more rookie teams from the STL area are being formed.

This is shaping up to be a very interesting field.

[GMKlenklen]

humm… is there usually wireless internet at the regional in St. louis???
it would be awsome if there where… Make networking a lot easyer… and make the php based scouting database worthwhile!!! is there internet avalable?

[Richard_Wallace]

humm… is there usually wireless internet at the regional in St. louis???
it would be awsome if there where… Make networking a lot easyer… and make the php based scouting database worthwhile!!! is there internet avalable?

In the past there has been no wireless available – we are working to change that. Stay tuned.

[GMKlenklen]

Awesome. If anything, it might be possible to set up a mobile server and just have a little 802.11g wi-fi network going on for the database. This is going to be awesome if we can get it all together.

See, last year at Midwest regional, the team right across from my team’s pit had pictures of the robots that where going to be in each of the round robin matches, and a bunch of statistics for each robot, all on an excel spreadsheet. It was pretty sweet. Then my dad started to tell people about how they did this scouting system, and soon it grew into an NFL worthy database and such (in other words the tail got taller and taller each time he told it). So yah, that’s mainly why I’m interested in doing it. Other than the fact that as driver of the robot last year, I had a vested interest in intelligence on the next match!!!

[Mr.D]

Warren Robotics Team #829 “The Digital Goats” from Warren Central HS/Walker Career Center will be attending the St. Louis Regional.

[DeAnnaC]

Digital Goats? Sounds interesting…
We did have a ‘killer rabbit’ at the competition last year…

DeAnna

[gren737]

Anybody got any recommendations on where to stay? (Or have any extra space??)

I’m coming up to referee from TN I’ll be coming in late thurs staying thru sat nights. What hotel(s) is everyone going to be at?

-Sarah

[Richard_Wallace]

Here is an idea we will be trying out this year:

Teams -

We at the St. Louis Regional are attempting to address the issue of team well-wishers and family members aimlessly wandering the St. Charles Family Arena, stopping strangers and asking if they know where their team is sitting in the stands. They don’t know the team number or the team name but they do know that their child/husband/boss is on the team and they can’t find them.

Well, we think we have a solution. We want each and everyone of the teams that are coming to the St. Louis Regional to send us a picture of one of your team members wearing a team t-shirt with the team number and name displayed prominently in the picture. We will then produce a large drawing of the seating area in the Arena. At the event, we then want your team to send a representative down to the Arena lobby and place your team number on the drawing in the area where your team is sitting, urging your team on to victory. We will place the picture you send on a legend poster so that viewers can look at the pictures, pick out the correct team, then go to the map and figure out where to go for the big reunion.

The excerpt above is from an email that was sent to each of the main contact people for teams attending the 2007 St. Louis Regional. If your team is going to St. Louis and your main contact hasn’t received the message, please PM me. We really want to make it easy for visitors to find the teams that they support.