I know there have been teams that have… underperformed this year. Are there any of those you want to see rebound next year?
Here's mine
Team 5842 fell off in the later half of the season. We had been doing well at orlando with our everybot, placing 12th out of 54, squeezing in to be the #8 alliance captain, picking 2383 and 744 to be our teammates for the eventually 4th place alliance after close matches with the 1st, 5th, 2nd, and 6th seeded alliances. We felt happy about our performance, and while we didn’t get a wildcard, we were hopeful for rocket city. This is where it goes downhill. We had planned to build an everybot for orlando and a custom bot for rocket city so that our mass of new members could get valuable experience. As it is with building two robots with a medium-ish sized team, our custom bot was extremely lacking in the end. We still decided on bringing it instead of the everybot, and we did pretty poorly. 34th out of 50, with a record of 3-7-0, and our OPR was 23.81 (compared to 34.02 at orlando). Needless to say, we needed to change something, and we did. We now have a new team structure, a more experienced team (our most experienced since 2018) and some nice cash in our pockets. Next year is going to be the start of a new era for team 5842, and I personally, am all for it.
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4911 CyberKnights are the biggest name I can think of besides 2910 from the entire PNW district, and they definitely had a down year this year. Having been titans of the PNW for the last five or so years (with an Einstein appearance in 2018 and making it to the semifinals on their field as a captain in 2022), it was surprising to see them perform as poorly as they did this year - for the first time in several years they had no event wins or finalist appearances and did not make it past district champs. From what I hear they’ve had a lot of mentor turnover and changing policies by their team’s governing body, Kings High School. I expect them to come roaring back next year and become the 4911 that everyone knows about (no matter the claims to the contrary… Who are the 4911 CyberKnights?)
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The New England team that jumps out to me is 2168. This year was the first time they missed district champs, and they’re more used to winning it than missing it. I’ve heard they are having trouble with their school system. Unfortunately, that is familiar ground to too many of us.
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I don’t like this thread as I don’t like the idea of calling out teams that struggled this season… but only because I personally know this team’s mentors I’ll say that 5172 is going to be back next year with a vengeance. A “down year” for them involved having just a single Regional win and coming in 3rd place in state… but they’ll tell you that it was building year.
They built two totally different robots this season which is going to accelerate the growth of their young team, and enable them to get back to being a dominant force in the region.
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I talked to a couple of their mentors and students at WNE and they were telling me about how they only had two experienced students and no experienced mentors this year, but they were incredibly resilient and I’m certain they’ll grow to become the powerhouse they were before.
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