Did anyone else notice team 121?

[CrazyForFirst]

I think that 173, 95, and buzz are extremly good ball bots. I watched a lot of the competitions -including UTC and the Championshiop- and I think that 121 was the best of the ball bots/goal grabbers. They always got atleast 20 balls and a goal. When they had a goal they always kept it. They were a really good hybrid. I think its because their design is just so simple.

just my tiny thought

[Andy Baker]

Of course we noticed 121. They won the UTC Regional, seeded #1 in Archimedes, and ended up with the highest QP average at the Championships.

121 came up with an awesome bot which could get balls as quick as anyone and also tug a goal very well.

We had the opportunity to go up against the 121-469-230 alliance in the Archimedes semi-finals. In the second match, we were planning on getting some balls (slower than 121, or course) and then "stealing" a goal away from 121. We thought that with our metal treads and the ability to lift one goal and pull it away from may teams previously, this would work well against 121.

Oooops... we were dead wrong. I've looked at the video many times, and I'm still suprised to see 121 hold that goal and keep us from pulling them to our scoring zone. We didn't think that 121 could hold their ground that well, so we really underestimated you guys!

I think that 121 did have the best "combo" bot in all of FIRST... they could grab balls as quickly (or almost as quickly) as any team and dump them reliably (dumping easily is not trivial). Also, they had the ability to grab a goal quickly and hang onto it. Plus... I noticed some pretty sweet driving in the quarterfinals and semifinals.

Kudos to 121 on a great robot.

Andy B.

[gail]

121 had an absolutely fabulous robot. I nick-named them the sling (I always name robots) becuase of the brilliantly simple way in which they dumped balls out by lifitng up one side of the sling. Team 469 was honored to have been their choice for an alliance partner.

[MissInformation]

I loved their robot! I started showing up early to our matches extra early just to see them go. I talked to someone at their pit area and told them how much I admired their robot, how amazing it was that they could get so many balls so quickly and make it look so easy.

MissInformation

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An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything in to an empty head. -Eric Hoffer

[Jeff Rodriguez]

yes, 121 did have an excellent bot. But as most of you know, we have some opinions of them I think they have a great robot, great traction/power, good manuverabilty, and good ball handling. I think they're the best all-around bot there is.

[Wayne C.]

In Archimedes everyone noticed 121. They certainly had a powerful machine for grabbing balls AND moving goals. Their experienced drive team also seemed to have the game down. They were certainly at the top of our pick list ( as I thought we were on theirs!).

Could they have beat the finalists in the Championship rounds? We'll never know. Don't shoot me, but looking at where we (all the teams) were in Archimedes, it would have been a stretch to say it would be a sure victory. The eventual winners were just too powerful and completely tied up the goals. As it turned out a ball bot wouldn't be much help in those particular matches but goal grabbing power sure would have. My opinion.

I hope 121 can resolve their sponsorship issues and funding so they can continue thier program in future seasons. They are certainly a great team and FIRST would be lacking without them.

WC

Originally posted by Wayne C.
Could they have beat the finalists in the Championship rounds? We'll never know. Don't shoot me, but looking at where we (all the teams) were in Archimedes, it would have been a stretch to say it would be a sure victory. The eventual winners were just too powerful and completely tied up the goals. As it turned out a ball bot wouldn't be much help in those particular matches but goal grabbing power sure would have. My opinion.

WC

well, just for the record we beat rage at regionals...... you can probably watch that on soap if youre wondering about it
i guess it would all come down to 469 and 71..... as long as we could get one goal i think we would have been all set

to bad we lost power in the divisional finals.... we never got to find out

[Kris Verdeyen]

Originally posted by SharkBite
to bad we lost power in the divisional finals.... we never got to find out

C'mon - give us a little credit...

i do give you credit.... i give you a lot of credit

[Kris Verdeyen]

Ok, well then I guess I can give you yours - 121 had the best delivery system around. I only saw them drop a ball they had picked up in one match. Plus it reminded me of an Indiana Jones movie. Great job, and I hope you can find a sponsor to be able to come back next year.

[SkitzoSmurf]

Oh we will be there, with or without a corporate sponsor. Bake sales and car washes have worked for quite a while, and if it means we have to do that again next year we will. It is a requirement that everyone does at least 15 hours of fundraising, and many people do way more than that. It's fun too, I get to be a screaming idiot on the side of a road pointing waving and giving the thumbs up sign for you to go to the carwash, I like being a screaming idiot. Hopefully you other teams dont take it forgranted, and I am sure you don't. This is cool,our team, getting all the recognition, I like it. Honestly though, it doesn't really matter, everyone puts blood sweat and gears into their robots and competes, and ours didn't cost that much, we just had a good design, ANYTHING can happen at nats, ANYTHING, so just have high confidence and have fun.

[kane]

Screaming "Fight Communisim get a car wash" works.

[Rick]

Originally posted by Ogre
yes, 121 did have an excellent bot. But as most of you know, we have some opinions of them I think they have a great robot, great traction/power, good manuverabilty, and good ball handling. I think they're the best all-around bot there is.

this is all i ever wanted to hear. and having it come from rage is even better. I think in these off season comps, our 2 teams together good win em all.

I personally think we went unnoticed early in nationals. after winning utc i thought we would be in the crosshairs. i also thought teams would do anything possible to make us lose our qualifying matches. but i was wrong. i guess we were a sleeper until sat morning when every team stopped by our pit at least once.

and 25 you guys were number 2 on our list. I guess other teams realized how well you were too.

[CrazyForFirst]

Wow I never really thought of that. That would be crazy, 121 could just get the goal and both robots could simply dump into it. Or they could both take a goal and work the balls to make for a tiny win for some enormous QP's. That would be a fun alliance in off-season competitions. But personally, it might be interesting to see them go against eachother again. har har har..

[Jon K.]

we have gone against each other... in new haven at the UTC regional... they are the reason we dont have 4 gold medals around our necks