Best Robot Ever 92-07 edition

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Herodotus

I don't think it is such an easy question. Certainly, 71 is probably the most SUCCESSFUL robot in the history of FIRST, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is the "best." I wasn't around in 2001 but you mention that because of the way the game was set up if 71 got going you couldn't defend it, or maybe I misunderstand what you meant. But that would seem to me to imply that 71 did as well as it did atleast partially because of that particular game setup. When you look at a game like the past two years a good defensive robot, or even a decent one, could take what everyone previously considered the "best" bot at a regional and take them from scoring hundreds of points to only scoring one or two. So it would stand to reason that any robot that can score a couple hundred while being heavily defended must be absolutely amazing.

I've only been around two years but only a few robots seem to meet this criteria. The Feds last year almost never missed the target, even when being defended.(atleast at WMR and GLR) And this year both 1114 and 330 could score 5+ tubes even while being heavily defended. That definitely pushes those three teams up there on my list. But the thing is these teams might not all win every single one of their matches because of the aforementioned heavy defense.

Not to say 71 didn't have an amazing bot in 2001, I really wouldn't know since I wasn't around, I'm just saying you have to think about more then just how many awards a bot has won when considering which is the best.

Part of what made the 2001 Beatty 'bot so special was the fact that there was no opposition. It was your average score that mattered. And Team Hammond was at least 30% higher than everyone else at every single event they went to. In essence that means, they were 130% better than the second best bot that year. Very few teams in FIRST history, if any other, can say that with definitive proof. 71 out-engineered everyone.
But....I ranked their 2002 bot ahead of their 2001 bot. Why? Because of what you said, it did have to interact against incredibly well engineered machines....and it still DOMINATED.