Quote:
Originally Posted by Wayne TenBrink
Both these robots were able to "dominate" because they had a strong organization and a unique design. Every year it seems that most robot designs can be lumped into certain "types". In 2008, there were a lot of good hurdlers, but the Simbot dominated because its simple and effective ball collector was't just the best of its "type" - it was the only one of it's type and it worked great! From what I hear, the same was true of Team 71's robot in 2001 - it was the only one of its "type" and it worked great. You can have an excellent machine, but its hard to dominate when it is just the best its "type". A lot of "unique" machines do poorly (we have the experience to prove that!). However, when you come up with the killer design that others missed, and your team behind knows how make the most of it, then you can truly dominate the field.
|
What exactly made 1114's design 'one of a kind'? 503's robot was very similar overall. There pickup, which you mention, was very similar to 1625 (who had two rollers not one).
I contend that 1114 was not sucessful only because of their design. I'm sure you could have given 1114's design to every team at kickoff and only a very select few teams would be as good. 1114's attention to detail, drive for sucess, driver practice and stratedy was what made them different. Every time they had a match, you knew they would have the best strategy, get atleast 4 lines with 2 balls knocked down, and would get atleast 4 hurdles. Teams could have similar autonomous points or have the same amount of hurdles, but no team could do both of them nearly every single match. It wouldn't be fair for me to speak about any team before 2006, but since Aim High, there has been no team close to how dominate 1114 was in 2008.