Questions to keep people occupied

[Cyberphil]

What do you think the best FRC robot of all time was?

My pick is for 1114 in 2008. That robot was completely dominating during every match.

When building a robot, how important is it to cater to looking appealing for an alliance (in 2010 terms, a defending robot would rarely get picked, how important is that in your early strategy)

For our team, we never try to look appealing to other teams. All we worry about is doing our absolute best in every match. We find it extremely annoying when teams come to us and tell us about what their robot can do. Especially to the drivers. Our scouts know who to pick, and trying to make yourself look good only makes you seem desperate. Your performance is what will really determine if an alliance picks you or not.

Speaking of early strategy, how rigid does your team make it? Do you require that everyone's ideas conform to it, or is it more lax, and allow innovation

Strategy is a must. If you do not know what you want to accomplish during a match, how can you possibly know what to build?

Which is your favorite FRC game?

My personal favorite, although I am very bias, is 2008, my first year officially on the team. It was a great game, easy to watch, exciting to watch, and there were so many different ways to solve the problem.

How the hell did 2002 71 legs work?

Honestly, I have no idea. I have heard of this bot many of times before, but this is well before I was in FRC.

On a scale of 1 to 10 how pumped are you for kickoff

10.3. I have developed insomnia within the past 2 weeks.

[EricH]

For most best robot of all time, there are quite a few that come to mind.

71, 2002. Grab 3 goals, engage file-card drive, and start crawling, taking whoever opposed you along for the ride.
--Runner-up for that year would be 60, who would grab 2 goals, lift them, and if you tried to push the goals, they'd just spin them around in a circle.

25, 2006. One of the few robots to go undefeated through all its regionals. They did pick up some losses at the Championship, but that's the tougher field for you.

469, 2010. You HAD to account for them, every match, whether their alliance partners were any good or not. Break their cycle, and they'll back out and restart it. Keep them from doing that, and they'll go right back to return duty.

1114, any year between 2006 and 2010. That good.

190, 2004. Beat them to the bar, or fill your goal faster. Your choice, but those were the only ways to beat them. BTW, that "fill your goal faster" was your mobile goal, as they'd probably covered your stationary goal already with the doubler ball. Then they'd use that doubler to double their own score.
--runner-up: the "slider" class of robots: 64, 237, 330, 868, and 1266 could all slide along the bar to block other robots from getting on. 330 could also unscore any doubler on their opponent's goal if they needed to.

The other way to tell a dominating robot: which robots have rules created specifically to stop one of their strategies/devices?
-71, 1997 and 2002. The "no intentionally detaching parts" and "no metal on carpet" rules.
-Wedge robots, 2005. 330, 67, 980 and other teams in 980's division eliminations. The "no wedges" rules. 330 and 67 won the championship and had sloped sides, while 980 and some other teams in one of their division eliminations had what is to my knowledge the first and only DQ-DQ tie in elims. Seems some tipping happened due to the design of the robots. The next year, it was "No wedges, and if you want protection, here are the bumper specs". This despite the fact that the wedges tended to be defensive and the fact that a lot of people on CD wanted wedges to stay.

Picking any one robot is too darn hard, though--they're all so good!