New England Projections
Who Are We?
We are a group of mentors from New England teams who have a passion for over-analyzing FRC events and making predictions about them. We didn’t see any posts so far this year from other past New England prediction groups, so we are filling that very necessary void.
The State of New England
New England had potentially its strongest year in a while in 2022, and doesn’t seem to be slowing down for 2023. There is a strengthening group of teams who played well in 2022, but seem to be gunning for the usual top dogs in 2023. Hopefully we can see some underdog victories and intense brackets this year.
Granite State
Last Winning Alliance: 7407-6328-1729
Granite State filled almost immediately this year, likely due to its high event quality and convenience of location for many teams. GSD has a similar roster to last year, having most of the same strong teams, except the captain and first pick winners of last year.
The Top Teams
131: CHAOS
Team 131 just came off an incredible season and even more incredible offseason. After a heart-wrenching loss in dcmp division finals, they went on to win 4 offseason events. They are definitely hungry to keep the wins up into this season. Team 131 has not revealed their robot for this season, but we can likely expect something simple-ish on swerve that cooks. Last year 131 took a bit to get off the ground, but they have proven they are here to play.
95: Grasshoppers
The Grasshoppers, similar to 131, had a stellar robot last season, and yet had an even more tragic tale at events. After back-to-back-back finalist awards last year, they seem to be on track to finally snag that gold this year. 95 has a very informative build thread where you can see their robot for this year in action. With only a single jointed arm and full width intake, they seem to be very simple and yet very effective.
3467: Windham Windup
3467, Windham Windup, we feel like has been done with their robot since kickoff. Similar to 95, they have a great build thread that shows off their robot and its very high potential. With a two gamepiece auto and lots of driver practice, 3467 seems bound to thrive in an early week environment. They seeded 1 and seemed to be on track to win Week 0, until their drivetrain failed on them. Similar to their other top team peers, they also faced 3 silver medals in 2022, and are certainly pushing to switch over to #GoldOnly.
5687: The Outliers
The Outliers have spent the past few years locking in their differential swerve and from what we have seen, we can expect them to be showing up to play this year. They always deliver some fun robot designs, and this year is no different. 5687 sometimes takes a bit to get to their peak in the season, but we will see if they can squeeze enough out in week 1 to go head to head with the other strong teams of GSD.
The Contenders
238: Crusaders
Coming off a district championship win, team 238 is likely looking to keep the momentum up into this season. Often leaning into simple robots, 238 will likely have a very well thought out and effective design. We saw them at Week 0 with a diagonal elevator with a gripper on tank. This design, if kept the same, could greatly outperform how they did at week 0. Sticking with tank may end holding them back a bit, but underestimating them would be a mistake.
1073: The Force Team
The Force Team, Week 0 Champions, have a pretty novel design that can be found in their reveal video and Behind The Bumpers. They make use of a single vacumn system on a double jointed arm to manipulate both gamepieces. This design relies a lot on the double substation and could be a good teammate to another team that does midfield and the single substation. It will be interesting to see what improvements arrive to this robot before Week 1.
4564: Orange Chaos
4564 was potentially the best Franken-Everybot last year, winning their first district event and being a finalist at the second. They demonstrated that a well executed everybot can easily take down even the most “elite” teams. We expect another simple yet highly effective robot out of 4564 this year.
The Sleepers
1058: PVC Pirates
The PVC Pirates showed up to Week 0 with a simple ground intake and single jointed arm combo that has a ton of potential. They are, similar to 238, potentially a bit restricted by their tank drive. However, with good execution like we saw some of at Week 0, this robot could shock people early in the season.
8724: Mayhem
8724 brought an impressive pivoting telescoping arm with them to Week 0 and showed a lot of potential to play at a high level. They played well early last season at Granite State, and we think we will see more of that this year.
6933: Archytas
6933 has been on an upward trajectory since 2020 and showed a lot of potential last season to compete at a high level. We have no clue what 6933 is pulling out this year but we are excited to see they show up with.
This is shaping up to be a great event.
Next up is SE Mass, talk to you then.
