Couldn’t find a thread for the Iowa regional yet so I went ahead and made one.
This is going to be a great competition with several impressive teams!
On a side note does anyone know who is doing the livestreaming for the event?
Other than North Star where we’re competing, Iowa is the regional I’m most excited to see. So many great teams in attendance, and so much online scouting to do!
Team 171 is looking forward to our first event this year in Cedar Falls, and I’m personally very excited for the first FRC event in Iowa. It’s awesome to see how FRC has grown in Iowa since I started.
Team 2883 is very excited to be involved in our first regional outside of Minnesota or Wisconsin, and can’t wait to compete with all the great teams. 
My former team, Team 2410, is looking forward to attending the inaugural Iowa Regional. The competition is looking steep, both from teams that we have already competed with (Shoutouts to 1723, 1730, `764, 1775, 1810, 1825, and 2164!) as well as old friends we haven’t seen in a few years. (This time shoutouts to 525, 967, 1208, 3284, and 3928. We miss you guys; come back to Greater KC. Leave St. Louis behind :P)
As for the rest of the field, we’re excited to meet so many new faces and foster new friendships! Be on the look out for our trademark Silver Hats, and know that if you see someone wearing one, don’t hesitate to ask for help with anything.
Now, a few congratulatory remarks are in order:
Camdenton 4H LASER, 3284:
THREE Regional Chairman’s Awards! THREE. Expect a visit from our kids, because we’re still on the hunt for our first RCA, and your team clearly has this down to a science and nails them with a laser precision. (Couldn’t resist. :D) Also, congratulations to your Brenden Barbour on his Dean’s List Finalist Award, and good luck to him in St. Louis.
Tigerbytes, 1775
Your team has come to be known as a force to be reckoned with. Nearly 10 years in the making, you earned another regional win at Greater KC, something I know your team has been itching to feel again since your rookie year. Your robot makes short work of the defenses, and can threaten a tower singlehandedly. Greater KC was only a week 2 regional, and I shudder to think what you are now capable of with 16 matches under your belt and 2 more weeks to practice.
Crimson Robotics, 2526
Your very first Regional Chairman’s Award from Lake Superior! I don’t know too much about your team, but from looking at your extensive sponsor list on TBA, it sounds like you guys have built up an empire in Maple Grove.
F.R.E.D, 2883
Winners of the Northern Lights Regional. Between your slow and deliberate crossings in autonomous, to your incredible intake, amazing accuracy into the high goal, and utilization of the protection the Outerworks provide, it looks like your team will be one of the front runners at the regional. #teamcatapult
Rambunction, 4330
Regional Winners at St. Louis, and your first one ever. It’s a feeling that doesn’t go away, and now I’m sure you’re gunning for a second blue banner.
Gators, 5172
You’ve faced off against F.R.E.D. before at Northern Lights, and I bet this time you’re out for blood. I wish you the best of luck in getting the regional win this time around. It’s looking to be a tough field, but you’ve proven your team on the field, and that will prove invaluable here.
It’s only the end of week 2, and there are already 6 wild cards in the field! That’s insane.
Good luck, and the Metal Mustangs can’t wait to attend!
(Personal note, any update on whether the regional will be streamed? I’ll be at college and won’t be able to attend personally, but I’d still like to keep up with the team!)
We’re thrilled to be hosting the first Iowa Regional. (It will be a bit odd to sleep at home and have a drive of less than 10 minutes to the competition.)
The team social should be fun. It’s in the Wellness & Recreation Center, which is attached to the UNI Dome / McLeod Center. They have lots of stuff to do - like a rock wall, swimming pools, etc. Room for up to 800 people.
This will be an exciting regional for sure, I’ll definitely be watching this stream during week 4. It’s a stacked event with powerhouses from Iowa, Minnesota, and a couple from Missouri.
I’m rooting for 5172 to earn their first regional win… they’ve built beasts over their 3 years as a team and it’s surprising they haven’t won a regional yet.
Team 1156 is really excited to be competing at Iowa as its first event! Good luck to all teams attending, see you there!
Oh boy 3883 is ready! But holy cow the butterflies in my gut are having a riot! It’s definitely going to be a VERY challenging competition :yikes:
If you can convince the GKC planning committee to stop holding GKC during the same weekend or the weekend before/after St. Louis, I’m sure we’ll gladly return to Kansas City.
I look forward to seeing all of the exciting robots. It’s definitely going to be a great event.
Thanks for your kind words for the RCA recognition. LASER 3284 would be glad to share our story with anyone and look forward to seeing the silver hats in Iowa. Our RCA success is really about the LASER family and their STEM outreach at the community, state, nation, and international level. We look forward to seeing old friends and making new ones from the FRC community at the Iowa Regional.
Next year there should be many more teams there that are actually from Iowa. DesMoines just passed a scale-up grant for FRC, which they are expecting to create at least 12 new teams, about doubling our numbers.
4536 is excited to attend the inaugural Iowa Regional. This will be one of the most stacked regionals I have ever attended, it should be a lot of fun.
Our team would like to compare our scouting data against other teams’ scouting data after the competition to verify its accuracy and see how other teams scout. If your team can export your scouting data to an excel or csv file, and would be willing to send it to us after the competition is over, please PM or email me. I would be happy to run the same analysis on your data if you are interested, which could give you some idea of how reliable your scouting data is. I will keep your data confidential. Let me know if you have any questions.
Just a quick update for the week -
Liberty Robotics, 1764
I don’t quite know how I missed your team in my original write up, seeing as you made your presence incredibly known at this and all the other Greater Kansas City Regionals. Your team is an inspiration to all of the teams in the Greater Kansas City area, and congratulations on your very first Regional Chairman’s Award. (Though I was very surprised to find out it was only your first. I figured your team had won it before.)
Blue Twilight, 2220
Blue Twilight describes your weekend and then some. Your team did what most only dream about - you went to Central Illinois and came out with the trifecta! Woodie Flowers Finalist (Congratulations to Mr. John Peterson), Regional Winners, and (an early tip) to your winning of the Chairman’s Award. Wow. There’s a new top awards dog in town, and I encourage everyone and their families to mob this team and interrogate them as to how they pulled off such a feat.
Note: Please don’t actually mob them or cause them any harm. It’s just a saying people.
Priyanka Koratpallikar, Team ASAP 4646
Yet another Dean’s List Finalist attending this regional. Congratulations on such an accomplishment, and as myself am a Dean’s List semi-finalist, I can say that I am very familiar with the amount of work that you must have put into the program, and you should be incredibly proud of this accomplishment. Good luck to you as well in St. Louis.
Out of the 53 attending teams, 24 of them have already played in a regional, and of those 24 teams that have already played, 8 of them are bringing Wild Card slots with them, so it’s a high probability that the captain of the Finalist alliance may be hitching a ride to St. Louis regardless of outcome. Basically the other half of this regional has never stepped on an official Stronghold field, and most of the are using this regional to gear up for the next Minnesota regional at either North Star or 10,000 Lakes. However, five teams attending this event have never stepped on an official FRC field ever, so let’s show the rookies why FRC is the best $@#$@#$@#$@# sport on the planet.
I’m looking forward to keeping up with the regional via webcast (because college. Boo) and hope that everyone else is hyped up for the event. It’s gonna be a wild ride, and 2410 can’t wait to help reign in the inaugural event. Be on the look out for our silver hats that people have come to know and love, and know that you can ask anyone wearing one for help and we will be happy to oblige.
This is a stacked regional.
Game Announcing is going to be a blast!
This year was especially bad. GKC, OKC and Arkansas were all the same weekend. Definitely made for some hard choices for teams to decide where to go. It’s not like we (GKC RPC) did it on purpose, though. In fact, we scrambled to try to figure out if we could move to a different week, which would have required a new venue, but were unable to find a suitable alternative.
Just something to keep in mind - we’re aware of it and know it affects a bunch of teams in the area.
I’ve made a bogus prediction list for alliance selection for this regional because I got bored over spring break… :o (don’t take the list seriously though, it’s just guessing)
Seeds 1-8
- 525, 5172, 3018
- 3130, 967, 171
- 2883, 2512, 2526
- 1730, 3928, 2220
- 4536, 2175, 3184
- 1775, 5576, 3026
- 1723, 3284, 2470
- 3883, 1816, 1156
Predictions: I think 525 will remain the dominant force at Iowa regional and will pair up with 5172 who will be killing it throughout the regional with their high goal shots. Don’t count 967, 1775, 2175, 2512, 2883, or 3130 out though- they’ll all have bots highly capable of winning this event. Some dark horses that may pull it through are 1816, 3883, 3928, 4536, and 5576- all these guys have bots that can play the game well… lets see whether they can do some damage. Let’s not forget the 2 Missouri powerhouses 1730 and 3284- They’ll both be focused on improving their robot performance from their previous regional.
Is it me or is it amazing that this regional has 8 teams capable of producing wildcards entering it… even for a week 6 regional this would be impressive but for a week 4 it’s pretty mindblowing.
I would love to pair up with the calculators, provided that both of us don’t break down in the quarters, which is what happened at both MRI and Minne-Mini…
The Daredevils will be streaming the event, the campus looks awesome and I can’t wait to see everyone there!