Way back when, before the days of plentiful powerful motors, high-speed pickups were nearly unheard of. 95's robot in 2002, Feynman, was very rare in that he had a full-width ball intake and was capable of collecting game pieces at full speed (of almost 10ft/s, which was REALLY fast back then). He was capable of collecting ~20 soccer balls in just a few seconds, and did so as the first move in almost every match he played in. It was an unexpected play because very few, if any, other robots could do it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL6VtO5VSd8
The next year, 95 had a 4-wheel serve robot, KC. But 4-wheel swerve is not what was surprising about her. KC had two pneumatic lifts that jacked her up onto the top platform of the bridge. These had been setup such that they would automatically deploy as the robot was disabled. The picture below is from one of the few matches were KC functioned perfectly. (You know how everyone says "don't try swerve unless you've prototyped it in the offseason"? I feel that 95 practically invented that saying in 2003.) Anyway, in this match it was obvious that without the bonus points from KC being on the top platform our alliance was going to lose, and the commentator made sure everyone knew it, he said something like: "oh well, 95 can't get on the platform... it looks like their alliance is going to lose this one, they really need those bonus points!" And as time expired there was a small flinch from KC as her lifts deployed right at the buzzer... a few moments of relative quiet passed and then she calmly popped up a few inches after the robots were all disabled, and the crowd went wild. We won the match!
This picture is the moment that KC's lifts deployed. The look of recognition of what is happening is spreading across the faces of the announcer, the field crew, and even Dean!
