Best Robot Ever 92-07 edition

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by EricH

... I'll add that the best one is the one that inspires the most people.

Hmmm... perhaps we need to discriminate between the "Best" robot... and the "Greatest" robot of all time FIRST action. The Best Robot could be defined as the robot that was the most outstandingly dominant robot at the game it was designed to play, while the Greatest Robot would be the one that had the most lasting impact or influence and that inspired the most excitement and passion amongst those watching.

I can't help but think that someone... somewhere... brought the first mecanum drive machine to a FIRST competition... or the first two (or three or four) speed gearbox... and used those techniques to achieve competitive success.

I know that one of my all time favorites was 1241's rookie machine in 2004 that would position itself underneath the rack holding the balls, and then open up and catch 80% or so of them as they fell, deliver them to the human player and then... once the goal was filled up... cap it with the doubling ball.

In all-time FIRST action, no... not the best robot, perhaps... but as we were rookies that year too it really opened my eyes to the number of different ways that you could play the game (especially when an opponent stuffed a doubling ball into their hopper, blocking them from catching the balls). It has probably had as much of a lasting inspiration or influence on me as any other machine. (Although 33 was pretty darn good that year, too.)

Jason

P.S. As for the comment that 1114 "only lost two qualifying matches this year" earlier in the thread.... one of those was when their radio suffered an inexplicable glitch leaving them dead-on-the-carpet for over half the match.