Best robots at Nationals
 

I'm sitting at home somewhat bummed about the fact that I was a booth member, meaning I only saw about 2/3 of the teams in Galileo. Franky, I was hoping to see more robots compete, but as I couldn't why not ask the people on CD about your favorites in your respective divisions?

In Galileo...

980 astounded me. In my opinion they had the best robot in our division. In autonomous they would grab the 2x, fold it back, and then trip whatever 10 pt ball they wanted to fall. Their arm was an marvel of engineering, its swivel captabilities were unbelievable.

469 could win any match by themselves. Most of you probably watched the finals, and saw how they could dominate by themselves. The matches between 93 and 496, as well as 177 and 496 were intense. Plenty of pushing matches, flipped robots, and tangling. for the record, 177 and 93 both also had superior bots.

358, in my opinion, was the best capper. They could effortlessly cap and uncap any goal, it was amusing in the final match when they and 469 ran around the field capping and uncapping eachother's goals. 358 also had one of the strongest and fastest drivetrains, I never saw anyone push them.

Re: Best robots at Nationals
 

I have to agree with that about 980, I wasn't at nationals, but 980 did compete at the SoCal Regional I attended, and I was even lucky enough to be allied with them during one match. They do have quite the robot, and their autonomous is amazingly effective.

Re: Best robots at Nationals
 

I was really impressed with team 67 (I think thats the number)...they had a nice, low profile chassis with an awesome arm. Great bot!

-Bill

Re: Best robots at Nationals
 

They built a second identical robot and spent all the time between ship and Phoenix programming, and all the time between Phoenix and LA practice driving. Very smart. Way to go 980!

Re: Best robots at Nationals
 

Yeah, i liked them too, which made it even more thrilling to beat them in the first round of quater finals, (nice job alliance 7).

Re: Best robots at Nationals
 

I don't recall ever being shocked by a robot. But 190 definitely :ahh: me. We were waiting for our match to start and I saw a match start with them without prior knoledge of what they did. As I saw them go on the ramp from the front in Auto, I thought to my self, "whoops". But then it got past the stationary goal "after bumping into the pvc and correcting itself" and turned, then I saw the hook pop out (mouth started opening). Then it pivoted facing perpedicular to the bar centered on the platform and latched the hook and hoisted itself up (mouth fully open). Then it opened it's wings and covered the bar completely on both sides as to forbid another hanger. All this in less then 15 seconds. I was SHOCKED! And later to hear it had four different systems guiding it on it's way. These guys have my personal WOW award. And what was even more shocking was that we got allied with them in the finals. I still can't figure out how we didn't go all the way. But there were some incredible teams and bots everywhere you looked.

Re: Best robots at Nationals
 

Wow! So question: was this their only auto mode?

Not that they need another, it's obviously impressive, and I guess their strategy was to get to the bar first to prevent anyone from hanging. But then their drivers never did anything? Just curious.

Re: Best robots at Nationals
 

No the WOW doesn't stop there! They could operate the bar cover flaps. These things could rotate around the axis of the bar, keeping the cover perpendicular to an opponents hook. And they could raise and lower either side. Then they had a long arm ball gripper that they used to block the opponents stationary goal from being capped. Also if needed they could remove the opponents capped ball and bring it over to their goal and cap it. ALL WHILE HANGING!! It was amazing....

While we were at the airport we met one of there mentors. He told me they had planned for it to grab the 2x ball in the middle platform on the way up and cap the opponents goal so they couldn't get any points during autonomous. I hope they continue to work on it after Nats and make that work also. That robot should go into a hall of fame or something.

Re: Best robots at Nationals
 

In Galileo 980 was definitely one of the best robots also does any one know the match numbers and division that team 190 was in I would love to see it do all those things.

Re: Best robots at Nationals
 

i loved 71's machine. i know it seems like an obvious choice but there was one thing that got me more than anything. the sides it used to push balls in were flat on both sides of their robot up to about 18". This meant that they couldn't possibly (as far as i know) go into the goal corral. very effective designing by the team from hammond. congratulations guys.

Re: Best robots at Nationals
 

That was pretty much our only auto mode, although we had a few variations such as going to the bar but not hanging (which we didn't in the first match of our practice rounds, since taking the robot down from the bar took too long). If everything went correctly, our driver's only job was to operate our Shields of Doom, raising or lowering them to allow our alliance partners on the bar. We originally had the ability to lower ourselves off the bar and play a ground game, but we found that we never used this, and removed the unlatching servos in Atlanta to save weight.

This was very similar to our ram, anchor, winch, and wait strategy in 2002, where our drivers only drove as fast as they could to grab two mobile goals in the first few seconds of the match, and then it was up to the operator to anchor to the carpet with file combs (back when this was legal), winch in the two goals we had snagged, and drive the minibot back to the home zone.

Re: Best robots at Nationals
 

469 was my personal favorite, they were able to get well over 100 points every match by themselves.

Re: Best robots at Nationals
 

We played against 67 in the NEWTON finals and came in 2nd to them. Their machine was just rock solid..quick..great hanger, solid autonomous mode.

Ken Leigh
Team 811 Contols Mentor
BGHS Nashua, NH

Re: Best robots at Nationals
 

I only know of this one:
http://www.soap.circuitrunners.com/2.../cur_qf2m1.wmv

Re: Best robots at Nationals
 

190 Was incredible, i was standing waitring for a match and i saw it climb up thinking it missed and then it moves arround the goal and hangs in auto , then it deployed shields to cover the bars and then it had a 2x arm to block caps ot move them I was Astonished. i never noticed it until then, There pit was right next to ours too