Best robot.
 

I want to know who everyone thinks has the best robot. Not who will win, but who has the best design and highest quality construction.

My top teams are:
25
111
118
343

60, hands down

tie for second
45
68
64

This is probably one of the hardest questions to answer.

Teams:
87
102
103
303

*Just some of my favorites based upon what I saw from the Chesapeake Regional and the J&J Mid-Atlantic Regional*

My favorite would have to be 111. Their design is absolutely amazing! Honorable mentions go to 45, 217, and 27 for their bots, too. All were very impressive when I saw them.

It's hard to say which robot is the "best" when not one of us has seen every single robot, there may have been some amazing machines at your regionals, but that doesn't mean they are the best robot out there. Also, although I have not personally seen all of the robots mentioned above, I'm sure that they are all outstanding machines. There is one thing to keep in mind though, just because one team has a widely known name, or has been good in the past, doesn't mean that their robot is going to be amazing every year. Don't let name recognition influence your opinion of which robot is the "best". Wait till you get to Houston, not every single team that deserves to be there will be attending, but I know for a fact that the team who wins the championship will have a darn good robot. In my opinion, the "best" robot is the machine that has the most heart and soul put into by the students and mentors involved with it's design, Assembly, and performance in the heat of competition.

Gope, you're too kind.

And don't sell yourself and team 16 short, either. One of our earliest goals this year was to get to the top of the ramp first. We usually do, but I've seen plenty of footage of 16 beating everyone, and read that it consistently gets to boxes in under 3 seconds. That's amazing.

45 is tough and sleek, and 148 had one of the best looking and strongest FIRST robots I've seen. I like the very clean look that many of this year's robots have, with little exposed electronics. 111 is tough, has a great drivetrain and some amazing autonomous stunts.

I haven't seen any video of team 60, though - can someone point me towards some?

I haven't actually seen any of the bots mentioned in action, so I'm going to reserve judgment on this one.

After this past weekend I would watch out for the silver scorpion, it is a very fitting name. Man, that bot is Fast & Furious. It has the power of a tank, the speed of a dragster, & the agility of a BMW. 6 wheels, 4 drive motors and 2 huge retractable arms. Not to mention 1 awesome driver. Good luck at Nats.


So my vote is for 25

45 gets my vote...

or 68...

or 111...

Or Hammond...

To many to pick!

16, 68, 45, 292 are all awesome bots, imo...

i dont know, but i'd have to say team 61. great auto mode and an overall great bot.

duuude, let me tell you, i was so blown away w/ 75!!
I saw them in the practace round, and wow.

I never really do this, but after the comp at RU I saw them standing in the lobby, and I was leaving, and I just stopped
and had to say how much I loved it to them,
They have me some really weird looks,
but I love the whole suction stuff

it majorly rocked

Re: Best robot.
 

Gope,
Thanks for including us in your list. I would definately add 16, 34 and 342 to the list and a few others that I have seen on web casts and don't recall numbers for.:)

Silver scorpion was last year. This year is Opportunity Knocks, or known better among the pitcrew and drivers as "Evil Machine"
Thanks for the compliments 340... your machine was great too, which is why we chose you.

The previously mentioned lists seemed to forget the west coast. I hope everyone is prepared to get owned by teams like 60 and 192, those guys have brilliant machines this year.

I was generally impressed by Team 34's robot. From what I've heard about 16, 34 isn't the fastest to the ramp but they are consistent. This is the best part about them. Their drive team is great to work with and very knowledgeable. How many other robots have the honor of winning two regionals this year? Without the alliance with 34 we would have failed to make championships. I saw someone else mention 118. It was an amazing machine with great potential but didn't have the autonomous to consistently be great. But when they got suctions on the ramp they were difficult to move. We managed to push them off early of Friday but by the end we had trouble getting them off with team 34, and team 57 had little luck also. As for team 148, The robot was great and by far had the best autonomous. The were taking all but two stacks near the end within 2 seconds. Stay away from it in autonomous, that thing was verging on dangerous.

While i agree, but before this turns into a fight for who has the better bot, lemme just point out that this year you dont have to have this wonderful complex machine to win, a simple box with wheels will work wonders with this years competition, so before everyone starts arguing, lets take a step back and realize that each bot has its strong points

245/292
 

My picks for the best robot so far would have to be either 245 or 292. 292 has seeded #1 at 2 regionals and they won in Chicago. 245 didnt seed high in Chicago, but helped our alliance win (they are awesome), plus they just won in Grand Rapids after seeding in the top 8. Although these team numbers may not be as recognizable as 111, 45, 47, etc. I'de make it a priority to watch out for em. :D

Really flattered that you list us, but your modesty is showing! Of the robots/teams (it does take both) my favorite would have to be 25's Evil Machine hands down. This thing is crazy fast (I love how it gets air going up and off the ramp); the driver must have a reaction time measured in milliseconds. Also, as mentioned elsewhere, they epitomize gracious professionalism.

Another favorite would have to be 384. Not as fast as 25, but just as well driven and I was really impressed that the students do all the work on it while the mentors gab with visitors. A really great bunch of people, who have also won a couple of regionals this year I believe.

So lets see no one has listed any teams from the Northeast yet interesting ok.

didnt see anyone from the south either (UCF regional to be more specific)

while i agree that simple bots can be very successful in competition, more complex ones still outshine. A simple bot that is lightning fast does nothing against a team like 192 which shifts on the fly between custom gear ratios (one really fast, and one really strong). Also, I want to see a robot that can reliably beat out team 60. I don't care how fast you are....the one way net of death combined with lightning speed and being immovable on the ramp is pretty bulletproof.

I think DanLevin247 put it best. Nobody here has seen -all- the teams. Let alone all the teams going to Nationals. Because of that, I don't think anyone can really make an accurate judgement of who is best.
Sure, it's very possible that one (or mor) of the teams already mentioned by be in the champion alliance this year, but then again, maybe not. (and yes, I know Gope asked not who would win, but that seems to be the air of responses)
There are a lot of really cool, effective, bots out there that often get screwed over by poor or unappealing alliance partners. Some teams have half their matches 2 v 1 and lose them all. Others have them 2 v 1 and win them all...

"The best" is a relative term to begin with. The best design to do what? Stacker, KotH, sweeper, pretty-to-look-at?

As to the highest quality construction aspect? I believe that any team of students that poured their blood and sweat into the machine to get it to work right should be given high honors.
Many teams have machine shop made parts and professional welding. I'm not going to bring this into the engineer vs student debate, but I think if the students built it, they should get a bonus in comparison to a professionally built machine.

There's my 2¢, don't spend it all in one place.

130 pounds surrounded by diamond plate armor.
13.6 feet per second.
A heckuvalotta force.
10 seconds is all thats needed to move an immovable object.

311 271 173 108 180

hrmm, well by the end of the LA regionals, 'bots were getting to 60. Going under its wings and pushing them from there, it'll be a toughie but it prolly could be done. Man, too bad we didnt get our custom transmission in, 25 ft/sec in fast gear, heckuva lotta push in low, shift on the fly =(

25 fps? Thats something I gotta see! Could you guys turn well, or did you risk blowing a transmission on the drills?

So far all I have seen is people voting for teams in their region of the country or themselves...

My opinion

I havent seen or heard about any truely dominant robots this year with a few exceptions. Some machines early in the year that started off pretty dominant that were beating out teams early were starting to be beaten in the later regionals by teams that have started to get their complex machines tweaked properly and strategies corrected. There are no truely dominant robots this year unlike teams like Hammond in 2001 and 2002 and Chief Delphi in 2000, who imho should have taken it all at the championships.

This is going to be the most interesting championships we have seen in a long time. About everyone has a decent shot of taking it all. I can't wait to see this go down

I agree I have seen alot of teams that I thought would win some regionlas that were beaten.

has 180 been to any regionals outside of UCF?

Thanks for the comment. I think 103 is really good too. I also like 639, 810, and 1082.

In one of the qualifying rounds at LA, 330 (Beach Bot) was able to push 60 off the ramp! They've got a fabulous machine, but they're not totally immovable.

The best...
 

Just to get some of those northeast teams in there, from what ive seen so far from the regionals ive been to.

173 - Lightning fast, great autonmous mode and pusher

571 - Another deadly, lightning fast robot,

58 - Good autonomous mode and just knew how to win

176 - They do not lose the ramp...ever,definately the coolest autonomous mode ever! Shame they aren't going to nats.

157 - Awsome autonomous mode...and they will always get up when knocked over! (very important quality)

Of course there are more...but those are some of my quick hit favorites.

Good Luck,
Andy Grady

I would have to agree with my buddy Joe on 103, I as well think they have a good bot. But as for the "best" robot, in my opinion, there will not be a "best robot". There will be a robot that goes out there and has reliability in what they do, and can preform like it is built to, but it will not do something as well as another bot. You can have a pushing bot, that will push with great power, and do its job, but the team that built it put an arm on it, and it became useless, a "chopper" bot that swings an arm around, and it can do that fast and with good power, but if it gets hit just right, over it goes. I think there will be a best for stacking, pushing, and king of the hill, but not a best at both stacking a king of the hill or something like that. But I have not sceen all of the bots in action, so I'm not going to make a solid guess on this one.
ivey

from what I have seen, 365 and 73 are my favorites because of their efficient stacking mechanism

Unlike those here who forget that their team # shows on their message, I'll tell you that I am from 696. There have been a lot of great bots this year, but I really like team 60's and ours. I realize that this is biased, but we made such a great team when we were together. We also made a real nice match for eachother. I think that 60 is reliable and can shut the field down. That is cool, but our robot, HEATHER, just darts from place to place and causes trouble. Together, we make an unstoppable force to be reckoned with.

Best long shot bots (sit in starting area and hit stack)
71
148

Best King Of The Hill Bots
60
118

Best PURE Stackers
73
365
213

Best Plow Bots
16
25
121
And i dont' know how they haven't been mentioned yet but
236!

Chris
229

Add to that 980.

oh, yeah. Add 980. They were a topic of our strategy for many hours....so hard to counter.

BBS
 

Of the robots I've seen at 3 Regionals and heard about on various discussions, I think that the best robot in the field is made by team 16.

Not only do they have an excellent robot, they have had their share of "bad luck" in the finals during their 2 regionals.

I'll bet that their luck is going to turn good.

We've had to face them in the finals twice. Once we broke down and once they broke down. Hopefully, we can meet again without either of having malfunctions.

Andy B.

I'm with Andy on this one - Baxter Bomb Squad is quite a machine this year, and from what I saw at both St. Louis and the Midwest Regional, they could have taken it all. I think they'll be quite a force to be reckoned with at nats, and combined with a stacker and a KOTH, they could very well be your next winning alliance.

I see no mention of these 222 people...

87 is really good

103 is really good.

25 ??? Fast auto mode (beatable) new strategy....
We will see who can push who at PARC haha GUM RUBBER all the way.
What about that match we won like by ourselves against you????
We would have won J&J if both your bot and 87 where balanced on the ramp....



There are plenty of good bots out there I gave you a handfull...

(Check 180's website. They only went to one regional and now Nats)

I have to say team 16 the Baxter Bomb Squad has one of the best designs I have seen on a robot! Also I have to mention 343 Metal in Motion. I was amazed at it's preformance while watching a web cast. I saw the bot when it still had bugs. And even then it was great!It's definetley one of the best there is! I can't believe no one has yet mentioned team 79! I thought their design was excellent. Also team 233 was an excellent bot that usually dominated the field! And last I have to mention 342 The Burning Magnetos. I really liked their look and design. I thought it was great.

Good luck at Nats!

hehehe Harsh words, but as i have learned through the years, is that living in the land of would haves, and what ifs is not gonna get you anywhere
;)

You gave our alliance a great match and left Team 102 on the edge of our seats the entire time. But I have to disagree with your assessment of fast auto mode being an easily beatable strategy. 102 and 25 won every playoff match at J&J because both robots had fast, reliable auto modes.

I have to say I agree with the last one :)

I don't know if it was answered but, team 180 only went to the central florida regional.

Now for my favorite robots from UCF (in no paricular order).

233 - Think Pink loved the arms
176 - knock down wall, stack, and went under bar. Amazing!
710 - PAW. does the same things as 176, really good.
312 - Heat Wave. Best at knocking down wall and impossible to stop
79 - Captain Crunch. Omnidirectional. Wow!

I agree with this list, especially team 79's very impressive "crab" drive. It is very nicely designed and constructed, and worked well.

good to see our number up there, thanks SPAM and 1062, i was just wondering about you 180, b/c in the matches i saw it looked like you were having some drive train problems, never did make it to your pits to see what was wrong, too busy scouting/driving


I would personally like to add 212 to that list, although not the most impressive looking, they got the job done in the majority of their matches and were more than less overlooked in elims. Of course, they ended up as the 6 seed and won the entire thing, congrats guys. Also 168 could not be moved once they got onto the plastic, good suction cup action.

111 is a great team. They are very tough to beat. Good traction and if you don't watch it those two ramps will put you on your back.

217 has a great atonomous mode. Paul is very good at strategy.

47 gets better at every event and will no doubt make the finals.

67 is great this year.

27 has great traction and almost won the GLR and did win in Cleveland.

548 has a great atonomous mode that is the most consistant I have seen. They also won Pittsburg.

902 has crazy traction with good game play.

71 what can you say. These guys are always comming up with something neat.

274 is very tough as is 1218.

There are many more that should be listed but I have to get ready for Houston.

Hrm.. people keep forgetting some awesome bots..

67 - The best stacker I've seen anywhere. 6 boxes at ypsi.. kept having bad luck though at regionals..

68 - Trucktown has been having really bad luck, but they were awesome alliance partners, if they only hadn't screwed up in autonomous mode twice in a row :( Very strong bot though..

292 is a really strong bot.. we flipped them once though.. hehe :D

16 and 27.. both small, very fast, excellent autonomous modes as well.

111 - Cant forget them.. very innovative design, such good control too. Fast, good autonomous mode as well.

Favorite rookie team: 1188 Oaktown Crewz.. their driver rocked the house at ypsi! Didn't seed so well though..

On my personal feelings on what strategy will win:

A big strong robot with large wings or something along those lines.. such as 68 or 45, paired with two small fast bots such as 16 or 27 that can go under ramp and stuff. The bot with wings has to have a good autonomous mode so they can knock all the boxes over at first.. the little bots go knock over stacks and move stuff around. Thats what worked a lot from what I've seen.. just people catching bad breaks.

Yea that was our strategy with 312(heatwave) and 267(demolition squad) at the UCF elimination rounds. In the quarterfinals it worked like a charm,heatwave got all the boxes we delayed a second came around and backed them up,waited till the end and then 312 and us(710) or 267 whichever was on the field at the time went up to the ramp and played KOTH, but then in the semis we started off the same way but got some bad breaks and we didnt win. But this is probably one of the best startegies you can use.

Any Dream teams? Like robots that would be perfectly paired to win?

I gotta say 343 ans 16 have been great parnters in the past (2002 St. Louis Champs). 343 Has the large wings. And 16 is the small fast bot. And they are both in the same division! I hope to see them paired as alliances while watching the webcast. Well when I'm not watching SPAM compete.

My updated list:

343 Metal in Motion: Just awesome

16 Baxter Bomb Squad: A great robot, a great team.

79 Captain Crunch: Awesome Crab Drive.

180 S.P.A.M.: Great team with a nice robot, I hope they do well.

68 Truck Town Thunder: An excellent design!

312 Heat Wave: Great Auton Mode.

233 'That Pink Team' Think Pink: Very nice design I really liked it!

710 P.A.W.: Nice bot! Hehe.

342 The Burning Magnetos: I love the paint job and your Animation! The robot was good too. LoL

And there are so many more but I am lazy, and it's been a long day. So Later.

So many teams, so few championship banners...
 

Here's a rookie team that shouldn't be overlooked.

1114 - The best stacker I've seen by far. They went into their second match of the Quarterfinals at the Canadian regional down by 123 points. They quickly made a six stack (took a HP stack of four and added two more to it) and protected until the end. They ended up winning the match 121-0, but losing overall by just two points. One extra bin on either side of the field would have been enough to at least get them into a tie breaker. Nevertheless, coming that close was still a huge accomplishment.

I predict that they'll be the first robot to create a stack of seven. It seems to be within their capabilities, plus they have a great little box uprighting device which makes things that much easier.

I don't remember seeing such an amazing rookie team since 254 and 308 made their debuts in '99.

personally i think the game this year levels the playing field... theres a lot of plows with drive trains on them and i think it will come down to strategy and driving

I think all of you have listed some great robots above. The only problem I see in the future is that some of them break down frequently. If a robot breaks down in the first match of any elimination round, then they are in trouble.

Best Team is.....
 

Best Robot is probably 60 and 68, the way i saw it at AZ and LA

Best Rankings 968, RAWC, definitely QP average of 188 at LA most by at least 31, AZ regional champs, had best arm but couldn't use it due to rules.

Best Drive system: 292, Circuit Breakers, For a stop and go robot it runs up and down the other side of the ramp in less than 5 seconds probably, or 64 has best steer design and driving

Best Autonomous: 60, definitely, they finish their match in less than 5 seconds, they line track knock all 27 boxes down and then lock on to the top of the ramp and thats it

Best looking: 207 metal crafters

Others i saw were really good: 234, 980

Two top seeds in regionals and a regional win--Team 292
 

A team that has to be one of the best is PantherTech, Team 292. They were top qualifier in two regionals, and won in Evanston with Teams 45 and 245. They have a fairly simple, but powerful drive train, a very good autonomous run, and excellent driving.

We didnt break down once, it was awesome :) lost a wheel, but we won the match and had it back on for the next

my 2 cents
 

from the regionals ive been to, (sj and seattle)

i think the best robots out there

1) 254 cheesypoofs (gotta love their anchor)
2) 233 rocobotz (their 6 wheel design makes them almost impossible to move sideways-good stack protection)
3) 359 waialua (speed!!!!!)
4) 492 sorrie forgot the name (their auto modes...work great..)
5) 190 wPi (the INS is beautiful, one of the few robots that could have possibly beaten our bot 2 the top..the crab design.. O_o whoa..)
6) 753 MVHS (fast, strong, and can someone say totally cOOL?? it has TRACKS and can outrun some wheeled bots!!!)
----
umm brain freeze
thats all i can think of for now...
sorrie if i missed ur team..i kno theeres more teams..but i just cant rember


and i only saw 2 regionals..out of..many many more..im sure there was alot more...

I love 111. There are tons of great bots, but 111 is just awesome. Ever since I saw them at great lakes I was like "wow". They have the awesome autonomous program that they can reprogram however they like, and they are pretty fast about it too. Also, I've never seen anyone take them off the ramp. I don't know, just seems like a great robot with a winning strategy =)

126 was pretty good too

Re: Best Team is.....
 

Sorry... but there is no way that Kingman used a line follower for their autonomy
#1 they dont have any banner sensors on their robot that I saw
#2 the line sensors cannot possibly track the line fast enough at the speeds Kingman travels. I know this because we made a line follower, one of the only, if not the only successful one I saw, and It takes the full 15 seconds to get to the top of the ramp, which in my opinion is almost the fastest you can do it without using the gyro or other methods to speed up once you reach the bottom of the mesh.

Cory

I just wanted to make notice of the tems that took the different approach. I saw a lot of interesting robots this year. I believe that first did a very good job designing this game and i applaude the teams that have explored the different ways to play this game.

I think everyone say a wealth of different robots this year. I think that everyone knew that a low center of gravity bot with a lot of speed and power would do very well this year.

We all saw the good teams that did well out there, and most of them were low riders, and i believe that they did a good job at their approach of the game as well.

I think that the bots that took a different look at the game and made bots such as stackers did a wonderful job to really explore the game.

I would like to complement 67 for their way that they looked at the game. I believe that there robot ws the trpe of robot that first was hoping to see in this years game. To bad we did not see any robots like that in the finals.

Best Robot
 

So many good robots I almost hate to make a list because of who I'll leave out, but anyway where goes:
25 and 494 (after all they went with us all of the way to the finals at the nationals !)
16 BSB Always a great team and never a good idea to bet against them
34 Rocket City Robotics (Beat us in the finals at Peachtree !)
312 and 267 (Heatwave and Demolition Squad) always a great robot and always great friends.
180 Spam (kinda like BSB never bet against them)

Thanks for asking
Don T.
MIM Team (3+4)^3

P.S. In case no-one was watching MIM (Team 343) was undefeated at the nationals.
(Sorry, I just had to toss that in)

Re: Best Robot
 

Re: Best Team is.....
 

Thanks for the vote! It's great to get noticed for building a good robot when there are SOOO many great teams out there,...and dispite not competing in in Houston (...we couldn't afford it!).

Now...about that arm thing...

The lifting arm was (is) completely legal. We made a decision to try the side arms in AZ, because by 3:00 on Thursday, we only had ONE chance to try to use the lifting arm. Even the practice rounds had turned into a "stack-bash", rather than a "stack-building" competition! We reluctantly switched to the side arms (which were designed for Finals) because they seemed a better way to go. We had hoped that at some point we could swap-out the side arms and use the lifting arm, but the side arms worked so well, (with the direction the game had gone!), that we decided to stay with them. We were very disappointed about that, but the results made us feel a little better, (#1 Seed, #2 Alliance, and GM Industrial Design Award in LA, and WINNERS in AZ!!!).

Just wanted to set the record straight! Thanks again for the vote! It really means a lot to us to be recognized for our efforts.

See you at the next one!

Bob Anderson

341 Miss Daisy
 

All of the robots mentioned are great, but Hey......!

What about Miss Daisy? (Galileo Champion and #4 Seed)

Simple and Efficient Design, 100% Reliable Auton Mode ( Student Written GYRO CODE ) and most importantly 100% STUDENT DESIGNED & BUILT!!
(we lost our engineers and sponsor this year)

I think we hold the record for being this most invisible, least mentioned Division Champion. (Is there a prize for that?)

Just my 2 cents.

Best wishes to everyone in the off-season!!

Best Robots
 

Hey, Has anyone noticed that of the 4 robots that Gope mentioned in the post that started this thread that 3 of them were in the finals ??!! They were 25,111 and 343. Great guess (or was it skill). What were your predictions for the final 4 in the NCAA ?

Don Taylor

I really not too sure if any one mentioned 469. They were the power house of GLR and completed destroyed a wing of ours at the nationals. They were a force not to be reckon with. They also had two speeds, one that went complarable to 25 (proof becuase they could not chase them down in the nat. finals), and power comparable to their own. They were probably one of three of my most favorite teams to watch.

Re: Re: Best Team is.....
 

From what I saw on team 60 they had a Fifth wheel that was at a fixed steering angle that dropped down to provide the perfect arc around the turn then it popped back up. It was configurable to go either direction.

i say team 902 had a really good robot. they did a really good job this year on it and it had a very good design and it functioned beautifully.

192, 254, and 295

Re: Re: Re: Best Team is.....
 

That's right. It came down for the first few seconds of the autonomous mode until the bot got on the mesh.

No sensors... ^-^

Amanda

Re: Re: Re: Re: Best Team is.....
 

sounds like our 312 bot, except we used a light sensor to measure revs. of the fifth wheel, and another set to find our orientation on top of the hill