Your favorite robot of all time?

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by anishde

I've heard a lot about team 1717 in 2012, but what was so incredible about their robot? Not to undermine them or anything, but there were several designs from that year with a similar drivetrain.

I remember waiting in line for a practice field at Champs and watching them make something like 80 shots in a row. I didn't know about their team before that year, but I think that robot more than any other showed me what was possible in FRC.

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by cadandcookies

I remember waiting in line for a practice field at Champs and watching them make something like 80 shots in a row. I didn't know about their team before that year, but I think that robot more than any other showed me what was possible in FRC.

Somewhat off topic, but have you read "The New Cool" by Neal Bascomb? It largely follows D'penguineers through their 2009 season.

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by CalTran

Somewhat off topic, but have you read "The New Cool" by Neal Bascomb? It largely follows D'penguineers through their 2009 season.

I have now, but at the time I was a sophomore that was just starting to "get it." Great book-- I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who hasn't picked it up.

[Cory]

If we're doing year by year:

2001: 71
2002: 60
2003: 111
2004: 60
2005: 233
2006: 1114
2007: 233
2008: 233/1114
2009: RIP
2010: 469
2011: 1114
2012: 67/118
2013: 469
2014: 2056
2015: 1114
2016: 971

Favorite string of robots ever is 233 from 2005-2008. Absolute works of art. The level of detail and awesome displays of manufacturing processes were endless. Plus they were all like, pretty good.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by Cory

If we're doing year by year:

2001: 71
2002: 60
2003: 111
2004: 60
2005: 233
2006: 1114
2007: 233
2008: 233/1114
2009: RIP
2010: 469
2011: 1114
2012: 67/118
2013: 469
2014: 2056
2015: 1114
2016: 971

Favorite string of robots ever is 233 from 2005-2008. Absolute works of art. The level of detail and awesome displays of manufacturing processes were endless. Plus they were all like, pretty good.

Mike D. is one awesome mentor that teams should try and learn from. Many teams that waterjet today can look back to his work as their source of inspiration. It definitely did for our program, which is why I pushed to buy one 5 years ago.

[ozrien]

One of my favs was WildStang's bot in 2004. First robot I had seen that used a GUI (called StangPS) to pre-program where your robot would go in Auton. As a student, I was really impressed and became motivated to learn as much as I could about autonomous motion control.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...hlight=StangPS

[carpedav000]

118's 2011 bot always and forever (closely followed by their 2014 bot)

[JABot67]

Here are some bots that really grabbed my attention. I really like when teams come up with simple and elegant solutions, or have breakout years and finally get noticed. I guess I'm a bit of a robotics hipster...

2007: 330
2008: 39
2009: 2753
2010: 910
2011: 3539
2012: 180
2013: 610
2014: 4488
2015: 1023
2016: 5172

[Andrew Duerner]

One of the critical aspects of 1717 in 2012 was that the abilities of the robot, to out maneuver defenders and score at a high enough rate to clear all the balls from their side of the court. This allowed them to change the meta of the game, which was to have 2 offensive robots and 1 defender robot. They essentially changed the game into robot on robot defense, where the opponent side of the field was very crowded with 4 robots, and the 1717 side only had 2 robots. This made it even easier for 1717 to maneuver around collecting balls and returning to safe shooting locations. Changing the game meta has a huge impact on matches and events giving the other alliances seconds to adapt or minutes figure out strategies to counter which is very difficult. Interesting that 2016 constrained the meta by limiting the number of defenders to 1 robot.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Andrew Duerner

One of the critical aspects of 1717 in 2012 was that the abilities of the robot, to out maneuver defenders and score at a high enough rate to clear all the balls from their side of the court. This allowed them to change the meta of the game, which was to have 2 offensive robots and 1 defender robot. They essentially changed the game into robot on robot defense, where the opponent side of the field was very crowded with 4 robots, and the 1717 side only had 2 robots. This made it even easier for 1717 to maneuver around collecting balls and returning to safe shooting locations. Changing the game meta has a huge impact on matches and events giving the other alliances seconds to adapt or minutes figure out strategies to counter which is very difficult. Interesting that 2016 constrained the meta by limiting the number of defenders to 1 robot.

While 1717 was really darn good, I don't think the single offensive robot strategy would have worked against a high level alliance that year (like 1114/2056/4334).

[Arthur]

27 in 2010. Their climb was incredible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgCZglrunO0#t=2m5s

[Dan Petrovic]

As the game strategy guru on my team, my favorite robots are the ones that teach the biggest lessons. My list isn't of robots that were at the top of the class in their respective years (although, there is a lot of overlap), but it's a list of robots that I talk about the most when discussing game strategy with my students.

2002 - 71 - The best example of a well-executed choke-hold strategy. No game strategy discussion is complete without mentioning this robot.

2005 - 330 - A simple, well-executed, and well-driven robot can win it all.

2006 - 25 - The lesson here is that a phenomenal robot doesn't need to do everything and to not devalue the human player. In my opinion, they had the best robot in 2006 and they couldn't even pick up balls off of the floor.

2008 - 1114 - Possibly the most influential robot ever built. We see elements of its design being used years later in both Aerial Assist and Stronghold. This robot is the best example of a robot combining functions into one mechanism.

2015 - 1519 - This one is a little different because it's not just the robot; it's the whole strategy behind it. 1519 developed an interesting strategy and perfectly designed their robot to fit that strategy. They fell behind at championships due to their limitations but they absolutely dominated the New England District. They were #1 seeds and winners at every NE competition they attended with their humble robot.