Best Teams
 

Since every year we have a new group of students enter and leave our program, every event is a learning experience. After being at Atlanta, I just want to see what everybody had to say about who was the best robot, best team spirit, best rookies, anything. Since I was a driver and wasn't in the stands a whole lot, I want to see what people have to say about the teams not recognized by awards but still had good bots, spirit and just over all presented themselves well.

Re: Best Teams
 

One of my favorite teams is the 1083 Emoticons. They hold the Robot Rodeo scrimmage in October, and have numerous team members socializing and working with others. I'd go as far to say they are the best team in the Orlando area even if they didn't get an award at the Championship. 1083 is full of class-acts and often treats me as one of the team. Kudos University High School!

Re: Best Teams
 

56, 67, 254, 330 the best robots and drivers.

the freshman driver from 330 that kid is sick.

Re: Best Teams
 

Thanks for the compliment. Our driver drives gas-powered RC cars as a hobby, so he gets a lot of practice. WARNING: I am pretty sure he will be back next year.
34 had a pretty good robot as well.

Re: Best Teams
 

Thank you for the kind words, punkrawker303. We, too, were extatic at how well our rookie drivers did this season. We're looking forward to them continuing to get better and better.

Re: Best Teams
 

I think everyone's forgetting the fantastic drivers from 503. They did some last second manuevers that won the match more than once down in Atlanta that can only be attributed to fantastic drivers who kept their heads in the game and stayed focused until the end. Plus they had a pretty darn good robot.

Re: Best Teams
 

my list is a little long so i'll keep it short. i hate the popular robot threads and say it like this. all 341 robots were the best at whatever they made their robot to do.

Re: Best Teams
 

Thanks Beth Sweet.

Re: Best Teams
 

I forgot to post my opinion. After only getting to work with the teams and see a little from the stands, I really like 1595 and 1577, especially for rookie teams. They were really good to work with. Also, the coach from 1038 Thundercats was really nice and we had a few good discussions. I don't really remember who had the best spirit but I remeber 1511 shouting Rolling Thunder and Wildstang was right where we entered on the red alliance side and they were always standing, but I love our Black Knight swords. Best robot...67, we always wanted to work with them, but unluckly we were always paired against them at Atlanta and at the Buckeye. Another robot I liked was 447. They're robot may not look scary, but it was fast and accurate. At the Boilermaker I didn't want to face them. Congrats on the Radio Shack award to them. Hope more discussion happens.

Re: Best Teams
 

i thought your drivers were doing it for 3 years now. they have mastered there controls of a steering wheel and joystick. i tip my hat to them.

Re: Best Teams
 

Yeah, Dr. J was pretty scary. I personally think 1002 had the best driver. that would be a joke because we were the team that spun around at 90 rpm for 2 straight matches because of our gyro.
But I really liked Beachbots driver. That driver was amazing.

Re: Best Teams
 

Team 118 The Robonaunts had an awesome 2 arm design they were in LSR and had an awesome design there robot capped flaulesly and the drivers really worked good together, i know the base driver (officerLeroy118) and for it being his first year he did an awesome job, he worked great with there omni drive and was very quick at what he did.

On spirit i will have to say for my self that my team (364) were very loud every time are drive team would just even peak around the curtain we would explode into chanting are cheer ( Who...RA, Who....RA(the name of our robot beinf Arm N Ra; The Ra Venger)) I myself still do not have my voice back.

I also like 111 wildstangs and 330 beachbots robots how there side armor was powered by motors and could go up or down. Our robot once it started moving, are carbon fiber flaps would fall down and there was no getting them back up once they were down.

Re: Best Teams
 

Our main driver left last year, so this year, it was a totally new driver. He spent lots of time practicing, though, and that was probably the key.

Re: Best Teams
 

I think that he best teams were 217, 280, 57, 64, 254, 93, 79, 1188, and 229 (not in any particular order). Those were the best teams.

Re: Best Teams
 

At Boilermaker, I would have say 135, with their CRAZY :ahh: :ahh: fast arm. I remember thinking, "Man, if only we could be that fast"
Very nice robot, nothing slow about them.
45 also had a very good robot, fast and they always had a HUGE stack of tetras where ever they went to work at.

Re: Best Teams
 

[quote=scott]At Boilermaker, I would have say 135, with their CRAZY :ahh: :ahh: fast arm. I remember thinking, "Man, if only we could be that fast"
Very nice robot, nothing slow about them.QUOTE]

135 did have a great robot that was super fast. The only problem was when in a few matches they were haveing tech problems. But man when they were working they were working and fast.

Re: Best Teams
 

well our robot was messing up becuase our autonomous wasn't working correctly but i think 1251 their have great attiudes and their really great people and they had some bad luck but there a great overall team. but i don't think i didn't do to bad myself becuase it was my first year on a team and i made driver i am just glad about that and we did real well so i am not dissapionted about that either

Re: Best Teams
 

The most spirited teams on Galileo were indubitably 365, 75 and 1108. Since I was coach I didn't get to see a lot of the matches besides the ones we were in but the best robots I can remember have to be 254, 56 (The obvious choices, and I must point out that hearing 254's bot up close it kinda sounded like a cricket or something. Anyone else hear that and agree?) and 103. We played against 103 at NJ and at Nationals and they were always so quick that it was nearly impossible to play defense against them without getting a penalty. Unfortunately in our last qualifying match against them a wire to our arm came loose so we were resigned to playing defense and it was extremely difficult. If their lift mechanism was only a little bit faster I would have favored them to win it all.

Another robot that impressed me was 469. The could stack 3 at a time and I remember a qualifying match where they stacked 3 twice along with 2 other tetras on the center goal making it 8 high and no other bots could cap over that.

The best drivers have to be either 330's or 254's. Watching them both compete in the finals was a sight to see. Congrats to them along with their alliance partners.

Re: Best Teams
 

As far as robots (aside from our alliance partners - you guys rock), I thought 868 and 135 were great peices of machinery. 135 was just plain fast, and 868 could grab 4 tetras on one arm and 1 on the other, making it function both as a multi and single tetra stacker.

For spirit, does anybody even compete with 47?

For best overall team, I'm really not in a position to know which team is the 'best'. However, I can definately say there was no team that for sure wasn't the overall best. Everybody was awesome, this was a great year.

Re: Best Teams
 

Thanks a lot. We always try our best out there but we're constantly in awe of some of the teams out there. I'll agree with 217. Also, you guys, 65, and 67, 624 and 66 for getting so close with auto, 33, 71, and a whole lot of others I can't remember at the moment.

Also, thanks for letting us borrow your multimeter and all. The battery in ours was low and it really helped tracking down some PWM and valve problems.

Re: Best Teams
 

Thanks for the complements. I am the freshman driver from 330. Like EricH said, I'll be back next year. I have really enjoyed my first year of this robot league and enjoyed seeing all the impresive robots and competing with them. See you next year! :)

Re: Best Teams
 

11, 48, 60, 65, 67, 79, 111, 118, 236, 340, 341, 342, 358, 365, 368, 384, 393, 501, 503, 694, 812, 842, 931, 957, 1002, 1006, 1014, 1108, and 1241. Why? Because of chairman's, of course!

Re: Best Teams
 

47, 67, 330, 27, 716, 16, 1108, 222, 45, 224, 180 (in that order).

These are the teams with a least a top 20 divisional standing a nationals for the last three years. There ranked by lowest total rating. Chiefdelphi has averaged a fifth place finish in their division.

Re: Best Teams
 

We (1219) did...in the quarter finals...I think I may have pictures somewhere on here:

http://nhiem.mine.nu/Robotics

Re: Best Teams
 

you're right they do deserve a lot of credit because they saved us with a few last second scores which was amazing

Re: Best Teams
 

i'm sure our driver would be happy to know this. this is his first year on the team and he is a freshman... i'm sure most of u know him from his... well... shortness. but he sure stepped up under the pressure. it was awesome!

Re: Best Teams
 

22 and all of the Canadian teams because we were with them in spirit.

No really though, 22 because they had a sweet new gripper made and it worked pretty well. Quite a change from last year at Champs when no one knew who they were, to picking one of FIRST's most recognizable teams (hey, we've been down that road too!;))

And again for hosting us. For BEST teams there is no other model. These guys made my last year in FIRST better than all the rest.

Re: Best Teams
 

in no particular order
330, 67, 503, 179, 233, 71, 111, 45, 135, 910, 868, 191

these were just some of the teams that i saw in matches and from ucf regional
they all had amazing bots and drivers

Re: Best Teams
 

thanks for considering s.p.a.m. 180....

BUT...

There are soo many great teams like 71, 111, 330, 25, 007, 233, 312, 1083, 1251 and well i can go on...

from spirit to the bots to the mentors to the students...

it's so hard to recognize them all. one reason i love handing out awards from your team to another...it's great to recognize teams that are changing the world around them

:) bravos to all teams!!

Re: Best Teams
 

Based on robot performance I would have to say that 980 does a stellar job every year. They are able to combine great designs with genius programming to complete a great bot. Their autonomous mode amazes me more and more every year and they are always implementing of innovative technology. Definitely one the best.

Re: Best Teams
 

I would have to say The Thunder Chickens (217) did an extremely great job at driving. They were probably one of the fastest robots in the autoloader and at capping the center goal...

I also thought these robots and drivers did very well this year (no order)
233 245 71 111 45 179 56 254 980 69 64 and a bunch of others....

Re: Best Teams
 

In no particular order 217,245, 66, 233, 67, 33, 191, and 179. I know it looks bias in the fact that a majority of those teams are from Michigan but that is just how good the competition was. The most innovative was 85 B.O.B, those coils were amazingly cool. I didn't see a robot that had anything remotely like that. The most spirited was 179. Maybe it was the fact i was sitting by them but i still am chanting Swamp Thing.

Re: Best Teams
 

302 had a coil design initially, but they changed it to a gripper.

Re: Best Teams
 

Thanks so much for the complement.

Our mechanical design and software teams invested a tremendous effort to get our robot in shape this year. If we had a weakness, it was some inconsistency in quickly and cleanly dropping tetras onto goals. The arm operator practiced endlessly to get the timing right and made huge improvements during the season. He had to lower the arm and twist the hook in perfect synchronization to make a clean drop. In practice (no opposition), we were consistently capping 9 goals. In competition, we were generally capping 5, plus the two we capped in autonomous.

Re: Best Teams
 

16 also had a coil, albeit not 2 like 85 had. I was super impressed by that while watching the webcast and a couple of us went "who the heck was that" when we saw the capping action. =)

Also again 1114 was on top of their game at GTAR after a relatively slow (for them anyways :D ) start in Waterloo. Combined with their use of collaboration this year with 1680 and 1503, all three robots made completely effective use of their resources!

Re: Best Teams
 

For additional objective measurements, 175 has made it to einstein each of the last 3 years. That's simply incredible. Add to that winning the national chairmans in 2002, and they should definetly rank in anyone's list of best teams.

Re: Best Teams
 

thanks, you guys were great too, and all i expect from any of the teams i have seen now is that their going to get better

Re: Best Teams
 

69 has won regionals on both coasts for 2 years in a row. I think that easily qualifies them as one of the best teams.

Re: Best Teams
 

Argh... I wish I had gone to nationals so I could see all of these amazing robots.

My list (from teams I've seen)

67 - Yeah... everyone knows why... we were almost on their alliance at Buckeye had we not been picked later on in the first run through
249 - Dubbed "Back Pack bot" by our team for obvious reasons. They carried around multiple tetras and, with two arms, grabbed them from the bottoms, flipped them overhead onto the goal. Splendid. Almost on their alliance at Buckeye.
229 - Fast and smooth, lost two regionals because of alliance partners...
135 - Incredibly fast. They never dropped tetras, they capped rediculously fast. We were in a match with them and 229 in Buckeye. We owned the other team so hard. However. In the finals 229 lost to 67 and 249 because 135 rammed high and knocked an opponent over.

My standards are high and remember, these are of the bots I have witnessed this year.

Re: Best Teams
 

I never saw them in competition last year. But their robot the year before was amazing.

They would have won if they had been able to go to regionals.

Re: Best Teams
 

You are absolutly right, they are an amzing team there 05 bot was very efficient. They are often over looked because they have a history of choosing a second regional over nationals.

Re: Best Teams
 

A team that never gets any credit because they are not often on Delphi is Team 272, Lansdale Catholic. (Lansdale, PA) An amazing group of kids and mentors. Filled with character and the spirit of competition.

In 2004 They had one of the best robots I have ever seen for that game. They won the Philly Regional, Pittsburgh Woody Flowers, Pittsburgh Chairman's but unfortunately could not attend the Championship.

But awards aside these folks are just wonderful people that embody the spirit of FIRST.

Go LC!!! :)

Re: Best Teams
 

I have to say the best robots i saw were 254-22, 330, 67, 980, and 111.

The best drivers I saw were 254 hands down.

Team Spirt- I sat right in front of Chief Delphi when it was finals and they were really loud!!! I have to say 47.

Re: Best Teams
 

229 most certainly did NOT lose regionals due to alliance partners. Whoever told you that was highly mistaken.

We had the PRIVILEGE of working with SIX exceptional teams this season: 1507, 772 at Rochester. 135, 1403 at Buckeye. 118, 312 at Championship.
During our regionals, these incredible alliances helped us earn TWO silver medals, an accomplishment every 229er is extremely proud of.

In the finals of Buckeye, we were outplayed by an OUTSTANDING alliance. We won the first match, but were fairly and handily defeated in the second two. I have a few friends from that alliance, and they certainly proved to be our betters. They earned it.

I certainly hope there is no one on 229 who would ever say "we lost because of our partners" because it is simply NOT true. We had one HECK of a season, and got the opportunity to work with some INCREDIBLE teams along the way. If anyone from 229 told you that, send them my way, and we will straighten things out; they are obviously misguided.

-JV

Re: Best Teams
 

Thank you for the kind words John. I would like to thank 229 and 135 as well, both of you were amazing alliance partners. We know that because it took the national champions to take us down and it was still a close battle :p . I would also like to mention teams 980, 254, 22, 25, 75, 56, 237, 303 and 330. Each of these teams were amazing in their own ways and I can't wait to see what they come up with next year!

GO 1403!!!