pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

[LeelandS]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I think a large part of FRC needs to step back and seriously ask themselves why they didn't build this robot. All the long bots who missed elims, shooters that could only do 2's from a tiny portion of the fender, teams who were in over their head in basically any capacity... You can learn a lot from this robot. With just enough features to have a competitive presence at all levels of play, I really think this is the best simple robot of this year, and an example of excellent strategic design.

It's probably because most teams don't want to play the roll 4334 played this year. I'm not trying to take away from 4334 in any capacity. They accomplished a tremendous amount this year, not just for a rookie, but for any team. Rookies making it to Einstein is not a frequent event.

However, 4334 was, for lack of a better term, a support robot. Their claim to fame is being a great feeder robot for two of the most dominant teams in FRC, 2056 and 1114. And there's nothing wrong with that. Since matches are played 3v3, being a support robot, a defensive robot, a feeding robot, is a necessary role. Most teams, however, don't want to play that role. Most teams want to be take an active scoring role for their alliance. Honestly, I find that to be the more fun and enriching part of FRC. If every team built a simple robot, didn't try to stretch boundaries, if the offensive roles were left to the teams that could only do it reliably, I'll be honest... It would be boring.

If a team wants to finish their season well, then yeah. Building a robot like this is awesome! It's a very desirable robot to round out a powerful alliance. 4334 should serve as an inspiration to all teams. They analyzed the game, and decided that it would be better to build "The little robot that could" than try to make 3 pointers. But I don't think "a large part of FRC" needs to try and follow this trend.

I will agree with you that, however, 4334 has taken a leap in strategic design that most teams haven't found yet. They built within their boundaries extremely well.

Cheers to 4334, on an amazing rookie year, and for many, many more great years to come!