Your favorite robot of all time?

[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.