Re: top ten best teams in FIRST
 

And everyone forgets that they were also World Finalists in 2008. That's three straight trips to Einstein finals. Let's break down the numbers here:

The last time 67 had a season where they did not win a regional was 2001 (If the FIRST website is to be believed).

Since 2008, they have played on 23 different fields of play (including Einstein appearances). They reached the finals 21 of those times, and came away with 17 wins. That is a finals appearance rate of over 90%, and a conversion rate of 80%.

I firmly believe that 67's 2009-2010 back-to-back Championships marks the greatest performance by a single team ever. Yes, even better than Beatty 2001-2002. 67 lost one event in that stretch, walking away finalists at MSC to 469 in 2010. They won every single other event, including the Championship. That is 8 wins in 9 appearances.

Adam is correct that they missed their goal (winning the Championship) several times. He, and the rest of 67, are also incredibly humble and one of the greatest groups of people you will ever meet in FIRST. But let's also consider that two other teams that are always part of the "best teams" discussion, 1114 and 2056, have one Championship win between them. 67 has three. That puts into perspective just how insanely hard it is to do what HOT did.

Re: top ten best teams in FIRST
 

But it's just for championships.

Re: top ten best teams in FIRST
 

I'm not knocking 67 in any way, shape, or form, but would these yearly results have happened if they weren't able to have well over 60 matches a year before going to the World Championships?

What do most teams who go to CMP have? 20-32(Thats going off a team going to 2 regionals). If you give those same teams double the play time and experience both on the field and in the pits, I guarantee you 67(and other dominant Michigan teams) have an exponentially harder time. Now, I'm not saying they still wouldnt have won or dominated the way they did, every drive team always wishes they had more time to practice and more matches to play and more time to code and more time to fix/upgrade their robot.

Re: top ten best teams in FIRST
 

Everybody's top 10 will be different and to be honest, top 10 doesn't even do ranking justice! We all look up to teams for various reasons whether they be on the field success, innovative designs, team structure, etc.


There are just some things FIRSTers will never agree upon and this is one of them.

Re: top ten best teams in FIRST
 

We need to define best for this discussion... My definition is that they have repeated high level performance, demonstrated inspiration, and are widely recognized by their peers for their efforts. Most of the teams we have been discussing meet these criteria.

IF we were looking solely at robot performance... then there is only one stage worth looking at. I'd even argue that any team that has never made Einstein can't be on that list. But I honestly believe that teams that do not have a repeated history of high level performance at Championships cannot be considered even for my definition of best. This includes multiple Einstein appearances and numerous EI/CA wins at both local and championship wins (obviously HoF status counts)...

Based on these criteria 67 is the best. The only teams I would consider as an argument would be 111, 254, and 1114.



(of note, my list earlier in this thread used a different metric, it was for 'most dominant robot' not best team)

Re: top ten best teams in FIRST
 

Yeah. It's really hard to narrow it down to only 10.

Re: top ten best teams in FIRST
 

Adam, no really, you guys are the best...we love to watch you every year.
Please, please don't do better in the future...

just kidding...

Best of luck...good luck on a fourth championship..

Re: top ten best teams in FIRST
 

Considering the OP specified this thread to be about "all time" performance, a lot of people are putting a ton of weight on recent years. While 2056's perfection at regionals is nothing short of mind blowingly impressive, the regionals of the 90s and early 2000s were a very different environment that the regionals today. There were a lot fewer of them and often you had several of the teams being discussed in this thread in attendance for each of them. Heck, up until 1999 there was only one winner per event. Winning a pre-alliance event carries a lot more stock than an alliance era event. Winning multiple regionals in the same year was practically unheard of. While multiple teams pick up three wins per year these days, that had only occurred once prior to 2006.

[Karthik mode]
There are several teams that need a lot more discussion in this thread. Chief among them is 47 (pun intended). The 1996 rookie all stars were the Chairman's Award winners in only their second season, AND reached the championship finals. They became the first team to ever win multiple regionals in the same season and the only team to do so before the alliance era. But they didn't stop at two regional victories that year, they won three (Great Lakes, New England, Southwest), a feat not matched again until 2006 (when 1114 and 1503 won three events together). In 2000, they had one of the legendary robots in FRC history, taking 2/3 of regionals (and being the #1 seed at the other). If it weren't for a mechanical failure during the championship eliminations, they likely would have won it all. While their later years weren't quite as successful, the only blemish on 47's resume is a lack of a championship event victory. And that is mitigated by the fact the team they merged with (65) when they became Wings of Fire won it all in 2003.

Until the class of 2008, it was impossible to be on Team Hammond for all four years of high school and not have won a national championship. That's particularly impressive when you consider their rookie year was all the way back in 1996. The class of 2004 won three of them (2001, 2002, 2004). If you lower that bar to reaching the Einstein/Championship finals, you can add the classes of 2008, 2009, and 2010 to that streak. They're still the only team to hang four Championship banners, and they're credited with three of the most dominant robots in FRC history (1997, 2001, 2002).

Meanwhile, at South Windsor High School, the classes of 2009, 2010, and 2011 never experienced a single season where they didn't reach Einstein. While this streak is obviously newer, the sheer length of it is absurd. If 2056 winning every regional they attended for six years is impressive enough to land them near the top of everyone's lists, I don't see how Bobcat Robotics' streak of winning six straight division titles isn't. Not to mention they picked up victories on Einstein in 2007 and 2010.

And while they've recieved a fair bit of attention, something is to be said about the continuous success of 16. The Bomb Squad was a force to be reckoned with before alliances and obviously still is today (as a member of the reigning championship alliance). Add in the fact that not only are they a member of the Hall of Fame, but they were several times one of the Chairman's Award finalists, and you have a pretty spotless resume.

[/Karthik mode]

Re: top ten best teams in FIRST
 

My top team would be MOE.
When Dean Kamen came up with the concept of FIRST the team he had in mind was MOE. They are a powerful community leader. They have infectious spirit. They are intense about being safe. They are gracious in defeat and victory and they are highly competitive.

Re: top ten best teams in FIRST
 

Yes and no. There is no denying that more matches helps teams prepare for championships, I'm not comparing them against the average team. I'm comparing them against the others in the "Best of" discussion. 1114 has typically attended three regionals since 2006 (2009 being the only exception). 2056 started attending three in 2011.

Yes 67 had a lot of practice and that has definitely helped them at Championships. They're also winning almost all of their regional/district events too however, and district championships. The odds are NOT in their favor to do this. Simply put, they're playing at a level that exceeds almost everyone else in FIRST.

I might have a different outlook if 67 doesn't win all their district events and MSC during those seasons, but dominates at CMP. Or even if they struggle out of the box but win at MSC and CMP. The fact is that they start winning from the outset and then keep winning, in one of the toughest FIRST regions in the world.

I'm not going to say that 67 is better or worse than 1114, 2056, 254 or any other team that's performing at that level. It's just too close to call. But I don't believe they can be left off the list, they're just too good. When you look at the statistics, and you compare their results to the results of their peers, I don't think you can argue that they're not one of the top 5 teams in FIRST, let alone top 10.

Re: top ten best teams in FIRST
 

Suggested reading: http://www.simbotics.org/about/outreach

There's a reason 1114 was the 2012 HoF inductee. The only one of your list simbotics (arguably) lacks is infectious spirit, and I think that's mostly because the teams they play with are tired of losing to them.

Filtering the 5 yr average OPR sheet for Canada, theres just 5 teams with 5yrAverage OPR Z-scores over 2 (1114, 2056, 3683, 188, and 1503), and just 14 teams over 1.

1114 and 2056's are over 4.5. 2056 at number 2 with a Z-score of 4.57 is over twice as strong as the #4 team, 188 with a Z-score of 2.25.

The interesting thing I notice flipping through the filters on that spreadsheet, is that the Canadian 100 or so teams, when compared to other groups of 100 or so teams (like FL or WA) is significantly stronger as a whole. The rank where Average Z-score = 0 is about 10% deeper in Canada. It seems the speculated effect of 1114/2056 making the Canadian 2nd tier stronger is true, or at least, its corroborated by this data.

Re: top ten best teams in FIRST
 

Suggested reading: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/1983

Likewise, there's a reason why 365 was the 2007 HoF inductee. And it's not as if other teams aren't plenty of tired of losing to MOE. They won the last four Philadephia regionals before the switch to districts.

His selection of MOE as his personal choice for "top team" is in no way a slight to the Simbots or anyone else. It's a subjective choice, and MOE is one heck of a program that is an honor to play with each year.

Re: top ten best teams in FIRST
 

There is one thing that this thread has solidified, the regionalisms of FIRST teams.

I have talked with FIRSTers from the upper and lower Midwest, New England, Michigan, Atlantic coast, Canada, never had the pleasure to really sit down with many of you from down south or out west, but there is a huge difference in what each area emphasizes at its core. Take for instance Michigan and the upper Midwestern teams. They will in the broad sense make robot performance more of an emphasis than those in NE. NE emphasizes the community (chairman's if you will) more than teams in Michigan. This is not saying that both don't emphasize both robot and community or that one does them better than the other, but each have evolved to have something different as their "go to" guiding principle. This also does not apply to any single team, but rather when you look at the community as a whole.

Debating who is best without parameters means that people will fill in the blanks with their core guiding principles. This means that we are all talking about different things. No amount of data or facts and figures can back up something if the something is not the same. This is not bad either. It is just something that people need to realize when talking about topics like "who is the best." This is without taking into consideration regional biases and competition systems. That is a whole other problem.

FIRST has its own culture, people need treat it like one.

Re: top ten best teams in FIRST
 

I'm definitely aware of the awesome that MOE is, and I wasn't really trying to suggest it was a slight to the Simbots. Ed is certainly entitled to select whomever he likes as his "top team".

I wasn't intending to come off as snarky as I did, but looking at the post again, I can see how it reads that way. His phrasing about MOE being the textbook vision of a FIRST team made me want to point out that Simbotics are equals in that regard.

Re: top ten best teams in FIRST
 

This is an opinion thread, if people were gonna base their lists off of numbers and statistics, there would be no point in having a thread for everybody to express their opinions. My list is my opinion, and we are all entitled to our own opinions. If you guys really going to be statistical, you came to the wrong thread.