[Ken Streeter]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Who are the most mechanically innovative teams to pass through FRC? What years and what mechanisms?

My personal experience with other team's robots is limited mostly to New England, but there are a few standouts in my memory from the past few years in the area of mechanical innovations:

2005 - This year, Gael Force (126) built a robot with an awesome robotic arm which very quickly and effectively placed two tetras at a time.

2006 - The Rhode Warriors (121) had a great Archimedes screw-like ball hopper which was a huge rotating turret around a fixed silo. Atop a robust drive train, it made their robot an awesome opponent that year; when they took up a solid position against the ramp, they could simply turn their turret to lock on the goal and fire away!

2008 - Team 121 again came up with a dominating robot in New England -- this time a hurdling design which was much simpler than most, featuring a single-jointed arm (only a shoulder joint) with a combination roller- and spring-claw that made picking up and hurdling balls deceptively simple. Not only did they get this robot ready in time for shipment, but they had it working by the end of week 3, posting videos online of their robot in operation which inspired many other teams (including ours) to come up with very similar designs for their hurdling robots.

2009 - Although not solely a mechanical innovation, Team 40, Checkmate of Trinity High School, conquered one of the most difficult autonomous challenges in FIRST history, being able to score autonomously into moving trailers in Lunacy. They were able to do this through the combination of some incredible autonomous software programming and a sound mechanical system of a turreted shooter atop a swerve drive base. Seeing their robot autonomously hunt down a moving trailer and score into it while driving around the field was incredibly inspiring!

2010 - Although primarily a software innovation and not the first time this has been done, the field-oriented drive system of Team 1058, PVC Pirates, gave them increased control of their robot, making them an outstanding mid-fielder in this year's game.