[EricH]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

The team needs a memorable name, not just the school name probably. Robot performance must be dominating at every event and from year to year. The robot and team shirts must have consistent color scheme from year to year. Lots of powder coating and anodizing on the robot certainly helps.

Powdercoating and anodizing is not required to be an elite team. It may help in making a good impression, but it only adds color and not functionality.

Being an elite team, in my mind, means that the team 1) has a good robot every year and 2) is more than willing to help any other team build a good robot/team or become an elite team. Number one has been filled by many robots without anodizing/powdercoating/painting the frame and/or everything else. (examples off the top of my head: 980 (one of SoCal's best), 111 (I don't think they do any anodizing, unless it's clear), 71, and probably countless others. Number two--well, if a team isn't doing this, then they are probably a rookie or have a robot that needs a lot of work.