Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

[quote=rees2001;841334]I'm going to throw a vote in for 1507. A team that will not be at Championship. They were 12-2-2 at FLR (both losses came in elims), 10-4-0 at Philly, (2 of 4 losses came in elims vs 56 365 395).

Rees
Appreciate the vote but we just booked the Courtyard Marriott Atlanta Cumberland Centre! We've also got a bus so we'll definately be in Atlanta. Hope to see you there!

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

67-85-216-217-1918

These above five all looked great and have won a Michigan Regional this year.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

For me, the best herder was 2200, it was a giant yellow box with a roller on the front and at the Waterloo Regional, they were nicknamed the Empty Cell Kings. I saw in one game, they got an empty cell in the fueling station in under 20 seconds. They also had a really good autonomous period strategy, go to the centre and spin for a random amount of time. Their thrower was also really good.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Team 399 was only going to Atlanta if they had won their way in [Regional Champions, Chairman, Engineering Inspiration]. Since we did accomplish that goal, we are working the finances and are planning to be in ATLANTA!!!!! The Registration will be in sometime this week or early next.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

399 will be in Atlanta. No worries. =) Being on that list is pretty sweet...

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

To be clear, those aren't really "rankings," just being up there says a lot more than the relative places. Still, great work performing that well!

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

AND 1254

GO ENTROPY "WHOOP - A - CHA"

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

I'm having a hard time reconciling the description of a bent and broken robot having a poor record with the claim of "awsome" [sic]. ;)

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

you guys did have a beastly bot! that was an awesome round! I screamed when I saw the score!!! good job to everyone at GVSU, if state will be better, I dont think I can handle going:ahh:

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Wow! thanks for the props!

And for referance, our auton strategy changed at the GTR, we where grabbing the first empty cell in autonomous.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Thanks for picking us, when you picked us our whole team went crazy( ALL 13). i was really suprised we got picked becaues we were ranked like 31st and the end of friday.

BOB didnt stand a chance once we had our eyes on him, and when NC Gears power dumped.

Cant wait till state to see all the other robots and how well we work together.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

^Well deserving of being on that list.

I've seen 399 for a long time, always at least a solid robot, but never elite level. Well, this year, they clearly are elite level. They drove better than anyone and LA, and to find out they did it with no traction control is just amazing. They must have a pretty good driver ;) (In fact, 399 is one of the teams my drivers are watching match video on to improve our game)

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Thanks for the mention. For those who may have missed us, we were finally able to get some video posted of a couple of our matches here and here.

See you in Atlanta!

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

After Troy this week my new list of robots that I have SEEN compete is

1. 1625 - they get a good 2-3 dumps in a match of 10+ balls a dump.

2. 67 - The best team I've seen against defense, not to mention their awesome scoring ability

3. 217 - Their fast, they can score, and when people ignored them to play D on 67 they ran 2 empty cells in about 15 sec, then proceeded to score both super cells with their robot.

The best rookie team I have seen is 2826 Wave Robotics our of Oshkosh WI.

My favorite bot is still 148 and I can't wait to see Tornado in Atlanta in a few weeks!

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

I'm very surprised I haven't seen 624 mentioned here yet. They only have 1 loss in quals between 2 regionals, won the Dallas Regional, and nearly carried their entire alliance to a win at LSR as well. Think 148, only not nearly as easily pinned and you'll be close.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

I was very impressed by 425 at the Palmetto Regional, they had an excellent powered dumper going.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

103 is a Hall of Fame team. Does anyone know why they are not on the list for Atlanta?

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

I second the 425 nomination. They had a great robot, as well as great people to back it up.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

I'm told they do not plan to attend. :( Hoping they change their minds, they have a terrific robot.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Oh, absolutely. A lot of us will be disappointed if they are not there!

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Cybersonics prefer to 3 regionals (NJ, Florida, Philly) to 2 regionals and Championship (Florida is a travel regional replacement). For the last two years, they have gone to these 3 regionals. Last year, their performance at the regionals convinced them to register for Championship at the last minute (and bring a small team down to Atlanta). Their robot was great as usual this year, but they are not bringing it to Championship.

I would imagine they will send some people down for the Hall of Fame, just not the whole team and the robot.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

103 decided to go to regionals rather than Atlanta this year. They have valid reasons for such a decision. We too will miss them.

And the DO have a great robot- You just need to see them and play them in the off seasons this year (shameless plug for BE8 - tentatively 10/31/09)

WC :cool:

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

i would have to say 121 is up there

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

121, 126 (GaelForce), 1100... All of them did extremely well in the CT Regional... Hope to see them in Atlanta....

I know that 121 won the Boston Regional, and that GaelForce helped out the Überbots at the CT Suffield Shakedown (to win by 1 point !!).
:)

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

I think you meant the New Hampshire Regional...we did not attend Boston.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

yeah i was at the conneticut regional 121,126,175,and 1100 were good

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Thanks for the compliment! That is very high praise. One correction though: We won the Bayou Regional, not Dallas. 418 , 148 and 2354 were the winners there.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Thanks Adam, that means a lot coming from you, you've seen lots of robots go through LA, from what i hear. =p


We'll have videos up from Colorado soon, just wait until you see those. We were playing at an entirely different level from LA. It was so much more intense.


Would be nice to see you guys in our division in atlanta. =) Three weeks and counting...!

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Congratulations! And we'll welcome you to Atlanta and see you there!
1771 - along with 2415 and 21, Palmetto Regional champs

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

126
1100

We're pretty spiffy too.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

has no one mentioned 973? the Raptor is definitely a force to be feared after LA...

1717 is one of my favorites but the huge list could not be complete without roobts like :
624: a great robot this year, definitely will do well at champs.
148: built to win rounds in Atalanta
1114: scarrrrrrry
1625: omg
67: this thing is redonkulouso
etc.
really it goes on and on, it will be the alliance selections and teamwork that pose the greatest threats at Champs, not single robots.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...2&postcount=44

;)

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

I think you might mean Vegas. 1717 was in Sac, 973 and Raptor were in Vegas.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Team 624 dominated the Lone Star Regional. Weak alliance partners kept them from winning in the finals.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

973 also won the LA Regional, that's probably what they meant.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

I know, but when you specify a regional the team wasn't at...

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

I'd say, my two favorite robots from the west this year; 330 and 1717. Tragically, 330 can't make champs. I have not seen a single robot that can play as effective defense, that can avoid defense as effectively and still score well.

They aren't the #1 scorer, but they still score a lot and more importantly, they make it a bad day to for the #1 scorer on the other alliance (which too often at vegas was a certain bright orange target).

1717 showed their potential at LA, and nearly won (imo they did win, we won one match by a footfault on their alliance, that's it). At Sacramento they showed that potential can be, and was, turned into pure dominance. If an all black strafing, turreting, powerdumper (and often shooter) doesn't scare you, it should.


Good call on all the other robots you mentioned, but after our performance at Vegas I don't think we should be considered a top team. In my opinion, the robot performs GREAT, and the only single failure between two regionals is a failed radio power cord (which was proptly made more secure). We are fielding a rookie team, and on top of that threw all precedent out on the team, we have entirely new practices. Our scouting, pit crew, and driving are solid in my opinion (and I'm very happy with them), but we are not a top team.

It was a great lesson in teaching our students there is much more to doing well at a regional than just a good robot, and I hope we learn and improve on this and truly do earn the regard. I KNOW the students can do it, and they know what they have to do, but actually making it happen isn't always the easy part. This is far off topic, but for the first time in my life I finally feel like an effective mentor (yet at the same time know I will look back in 5 years, or heck, even 1, and say I knew nothing). It was great hearing from the kids, "Ohhhhhh. that's why you were such a stickler for quality/performance/continuous improvment", after walking around our regionals.

In the end however, it doesn't matter what the robot looks like, how fast it dumps balls, or how many empty cells it can run. It's how many points it scores, and how many points it keeps the opponent from scoring. Sure we can dump more balls faster than a good deal of teams in ideal conditions, but it's the reality of a 2 minute match many teams are beating us in.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Ethan, I'm pretty sure it was the other way around... 126 did most of the scoring. ;) (Oh yeah, and congrats on getting a CD account.)


I volunteered on field reset at both the Boston and Connecticut regionals, so I watched a lot of matches in person in addition to all of the regionals I followed on the webcasts. There were some truly spectacular teams at both. 20, 61, 121, 126, 175, 190, 694, 1100, and 1902 were all very impressive at scoring. Team 2265 played terrific defense. I am very glad we weren't up in any matches against them. Many specific teams formed great alliances and showed excellent teamwork during both qualifications and elims.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Why isn't 330 going to Atlanta?? I was so looking forward to seeing and taking pictures of their drive system this year. :(

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

330 didn't qualify. They had decided to only go if they qualified.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

That's true, Sorry 121... I wasn't really that concerned about scouting at the regionals though... That was Eric N's and HaHa's job!

Was it just me or did the teams that had fans on the back of their robots seem to have better acceleration than those that didn't? (i.e. 121 and 716)...

(thanks :))

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

I know, i think they meant to say Los Angelas instead of sacremento.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

my pick as of right now would be between 67 and 217

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Funny, they're against each other in the first match tomorrow :rolleyes:
http://www2.usfirst.org/2009comp/eve...edulequal.html

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Ok, many of you are wondering why we are not on the list for Atlanta. We're not going and do not plan on going in any way shape or form, although I believe one of our students will be traveling down with some friends. Our team has valid reasons and many concerns about Atlanta. We have more fun doing multiple regionals and not nationals. We like going to regionals, because the kids have more fun and they are more personable then nationals. We have our reasons for not going, and they extend past what I have said here in this post. We will miss being able to play with teams like yours Meredith, and Lucas, we got to play with you and against you in Philly which was fun, congratulations again.

Thank you to y'all that think our robot is great. I appreciate it. This year we had the chance to play against and with many great robots with many great teams. This year was fun. :)

Cass

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Here are the new top 25 entries after all 6 weeks of regionals.
These numbers are pretty self-explanatory.
To look at all entries/entries from specific regionals you can download the spreadsheet from my post here:
ALLREGIONALS-OPRNET

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

how are people finding the OPR this year?

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

I really admire 668, 100, 254, 766, and 1868 (Davis mod) for their simplistic and effective designs.

1717 has a tremendous amount of control over their bot. The driving makes them even better.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

I would have to say team 2825 (WAVE ROBOTICS) has an awesome robot hands down! and team 1714 (MORE ROBOTICS) are great too!

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Its 2826 not 2825 just to let you know...

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Heh, thanks :D

I was just visiting here to talk about Wave, as they were so awesome at 10,000 Lakes I thought they deserved a mention. Basically Wave was to 10,000 Lakes as Winnovation was to Wisconsin: A monster.

Their crab drive really helps them a lot, as unlike Winnovation I didn't see them get pinned at all. They could pretty much do everything better than most of the robots there; scoring, defense, emptycell...

Needless to say when they picked us first I was pretty happy. Rookie bot of the year, and a threat to look out for at Worlds.

I'll say a little bit about our bot since it's been mentioned in the thread (I wouldn't say it's a "top bot" especially with the little I've seen outside of here, and I don't like tooting my own horn very much). Basically our robot's designed to work as a shooter or a turreted faux-dumper; since we can feed balls quickly we can get out 6 balls in about a second and 9 in two. Our ball pickup mechanism doesn't jam very easily (i've never seen it stuck for more than a second or so) and we're just wide enough so we can run along the wall to pick up Orbit balls, so we have an easier time feeding than some. As most teams have discovered short range / high speed shooting is really the way to go this year so we don't even usually try to go long range; we can use the dial on the joystick to adjust range for the occasional shot though.

We did better because we fixed the drive code issues we had all through Wisconsin. I'm going to talk to programming about a new autonomous mode at our next meeting, that was what cost us the 1st semifinal elimination match.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

From what I've seen the best robots are: team 67 and team 217. I know there are many other great robots that I haven't seen yet.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

From what ive seen winnovation has a nice dumper
1714 has a quick shooter
and the titanium team has a very interesting empty cell mechanism

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Don't sell yourself before you kudo others. I thought I taught you better than that...

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Anybody looking at rookie team 2970 ebots???? I belive where one of the many top bots this year. Of course im going to go with 1625 is up there. I havent seen any shooters that actually worked nicely. I want to see one.

-#2970-Tim

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

what about 2970?? have you seen us in action? 2nd in wisconsin and won minneapolis.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Don't worry, people know who you guys are. Especially those of us who have seen you guys in action. Lay your stuff on the field in Atlanta and you will be noticed. Just keep in mind that Atlanta is a whooooooooooooooole new ball game when it comes to strategy and robot performance. I guarantee you that everyone with winning Worlds in their sights has been working on ways to make their bot better/faster/stronger. I know we have ;)

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

The Top bots I saw in Michigan were definitely 217 (as they usually are, they make good robots) and team 67. Team 67 seemed a bit impatient in scoring though, they could have wrecked even more with a little tweaking to their drive strategy.

In my opinion a lot of people made bots that could score, but very few made bots that could sucessfully pin, score, and be ACCURATE. All the while evading other balls. I know this is out of left field, but I'd say team 66 made a great robot this year (20 wheels) by virtue of their near perfect evasion. In every match they never had more than a few lucky human player shots scored while still unloading a decent amount of times.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

ha.. Don't worry you guys are known..All florida teams pretty much know about you. They were all watching Krunch and then they saw your robot with us and saw that you were amazing :P You guys were great at the North Star! Thanks for being with us!

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Sadly not everyone in Florida was watching (e.g. me), but I will watch the archive. I was planning on watching but didn't have time, soo I'm praying for an archive to appear soon.:D

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Ha.. well you heard about them from Harrison and me! lol

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

It should be up soon on TBA. Just a warning, unfortunately it is only webcast quality and the sound is hopelessly out of sync on quite a few of the files.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

A little, yeah.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

A reminder to the rookies: We would rather prefer that you plug other robots before (or instead of) plugging your own.

That said, while I didn't watch any of 2826's matches that I know about (I had other things on my mind, like fixing an R/C aircraft and fighting a blizzard to get to the building it was in), I do know that they're the real deal. You don't do what they did--#1 seed, win the event, robot award, one loss at 10000 Lakes, RAS*2--without doing SOMETHING right. (/me notes them on FF Championship picklist alongside some other top rookies--decisions, decisions)

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

I think a lot of FL teams have been overlooked due to the vast amount of NW teams there are. As a participant of the FL regional this year, let me just say, it was a VERY competitive regional. Every team that was seeded in the top 8 were great. A few FL teams I'd be watching out for are:
179 (1st place)
744 (highest ranked FL team, 2nd place)
79 (2nd place)
233 (it's the pink team, they will always find a way to own :cool:, 1st place )

Serioulsy, these teams are going to rock.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

"You must spread some reputation around before giving it to EricH again."

I definitely agree with this post.

I also want to add a rookie to this list, team 2836, although they had it tough as far as record goes at Connecticut, they had some coolness factor in their robot. The thing I really want to emphasize is that they had the best team image I have ever seen for a rookie. They had multiple mascots, they had TV screens showing CAD work and build season progress, I would even argue that they had the best pit display of all the teams in Connecticut. They even had their robot on a turntable in the pit so you could see all the sides of it. It's hard to describe over the internet, but it was impressive. The first thing I said when I saw it was "wow, their a rookie."

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

1114 Simbotics .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .....
............................... I LOST THE GAME!!!!!!!!!!:yikes:

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

I'll let you know on Saturday the 18th.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

I'll let you know sometime in July. After IRI, of course.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

It ends Aug. 1 this year though. ;)

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Its all about strategy strategy strategy!! Part of this is trying to minimize ranking score….read on.
Well unlike last year where a great offensive robot could win almost any match for an alliance, this year strategy plays a big role in your success. This year instead of just scoring ,we have diversified and spent equal time blocking and extracting alliance partners from robot dog piles.
After a match or 2 we were also very careful to avoid high scores in qualifications due to our trend in past years of having getting knocked down in the seeding due to the ranking score.

We have a relatively high capacity catapult assisted dumper with instant dumping and excellent accuracy. This minimizes the time that we have to loiter on target and as such we are less of a target. Notice our near empty trailer in most matches. . We are done shooting in 250 ms whether it is 6 balls or 10 balls. Mort time to get more balls, less time to be a target.
Our 8 wheel drive (2 per corner) decision was made after 10 days of exhaustive traction testing proved that friction/traction was a function of contact area for a given normal force. All 4 corners of the drive train are independently powered with electronic controlled (anti-spin) traction and (antiskid) braking. The front wheels are independently steered and operate in full swerve attitudes to facilitate sharp turning, pirouette etc without the traction robbing effects of wheel spin that a skid steered robot has. In turns or when trying to veer/push out of a dog pile or pin, skid steered bots are operating in the more slippery kinetic friction mode. We can operate with the stickier static friction virtually all of the time. We can push anyone …even laterally The drive was entirely within our 40 lb hold back so we developed and refined and practiced with it right up to the day before the AZ regional. Oh, 11 fps top speed if we need it.
A super experienced driver with championship RC car and 3D flying experience.
An ball handler operator than knows the guts of the software program.
Oh and did I mention strategizing! know your allies, study your opponents, and lead your alliance,
ps.. insanely high scores = less supercells allowed in the next match. That bit us once or twice and in the end we really focused on shaving the points to a bare minimum to raise our seed position. . See the thin point spreads in the last few matches where we were ever increasingly desperate to lower our Ranking Score . Almost too close!!!! In retrospect, we should have just scored more and then scored on our own alliance to avoid the low score critique. Hard however to shoot just a couple with our dumper if it is loaded with 8.


Hope to see everyone in Atlanta!

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Thanks very much:) , Team Beta had a great time and is hoping to compete with you all next year.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Seconding 2836. They had some of the best defensive play in all of Newton. When we were paired with them, they stayed on their bot the whole match and were generally extremely smart drivers. They have a very solid, well put together team and image too.

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

I have to admit I underestimated 469. They were awesome on Newton! They were they best all around bot I've seen in person. They can play great defense because they have fans(they can also score while doing so) If they have D played on them they can still score. And they can score!:yikes: 469 should definitely be up there as one of the best all around bots

Re: Top Bots for 2009?
 

Once I saw team 111 (wildstang), from galileo, i knew they would make it pretty far, and they ended up winning. My friend texted me asking what good robots were on our field. I mentioned team 111 and told her to look them up on thebluealliance. She responded back with "omg, thats amazing!"

Props to the winners!