Best Robot of 2010

[Lil' Lavery]

There's still two months left in 2010. Isn't this discussion a little premature?

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

There's still two months left in 2010. Isn't this discussion a little premature?

The apple doesn't fall far ...

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

There's still two months left in 2010. Isn't this discussion a little premature?

To take your witticism seriously for a minute, I would say not.

Let's take the main contenders for the prize: 1114, 469, 67, 33, 1718, 1519, 294, and 1625 in my opinion as outlined below. Michigan is done with offseasons basically right now, so you can cut those teams out which leaves 294, 1519, and 1625. 294's traditional offseason participation is over, and 1114 and 1625 don't have offseasons in their region. That leaves 1519, whom might go to Bash at the Beach or one of the other late NE offseasons, but while they're great, I doubt they will suddenly grow above and beyond the other "contenders" here.

[dodar]

I cant believe no one has thrown 2056's hat into the ring yet?

[Basel A]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

To take your witticism seriously for a minute, I would say not.

Let's take the main contenders for the prize: 1114, 469, 67, 33, 1718, 1519, 294, and 1625 in my opinion as outlined below. Michigan is done with offseasons basically right now, so you can cut those teams out which leaves 294, 1519, and 1625. 294's traditional offseason participation is over, and 1114 and 1625 don't have offseasons in their region. That leaves 1519, whom might go to Bash at the Beach or one of the other late NE offseasons, but while they're great, I doubt they will suddenly grow above and beyond the other "contenders" here.

WMRI? Michigan isn't quite done yet.

[AdamHeard]

Surprised no one has mentioned 254 and 233 yet. 254 handily won two regionals, was #1 seed in their division, and 233 was their pick (in a stacked division).

[dodar]

I wouldnt say 233 as a best robot contender for the year. 254 yes. 233 no. Now, From thinking of teams that also made it to Einstein, I would mention that rookie team that made it. I believe they were The Comets, but idr the team ####

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by dodar

I wouldnt say 233 as a best robot contender for the year. 254 yes. 233 no. Now, From thinking of teams that also made it to Einstein, I would mention that rookie team that made it. I believe they were The Comets, but idr the team ####

They didn't perform great at Florida, but certainly improved for LA, and improved leaps and bounds for champs.

You don't get picked by the #1 seed (above team 33) in a stacked division by a team with great scouting without being one of the best.

[rogerlsmith]

Originally Posted by dodar

I wouldnt say 233 as a best robot contender for the year. 254 yes. 233 no. Now, From thinking of teams that also made it to Einstein, I would mention that rookie team that made it. I believe they were The Comets, but idr the team ####

3357

[Jon Jack]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

Surprised no one has mentioned 254 and 233 yet. 254 handily won two regionals, was #1 seed in their division, and 233 was their pick (in a stacked division).

I agree that 254 should certainly be in the conversation for best robot of the year.

However, I don't think 233 fits in the category. 233 had a rough start to the season (missed elims in Florida and semis in LA). As usual, 233 were masters of continuous improvement and were much better at championships than they were in Florida or LA.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

To take your witticism seriously for a minute, I would say not.

Let's take the main contenders for the prize: 1114, 469, 67, 33, 1718, 1519, 294, and 1625 in my opinion as outlined below. Michigan is done with offseasons basically right now, so you can cut those teams out which leaves 294, 1519, and 1625. 294's traditional offseason participation is over, and 1114 and 1625 don't have offseasons in their region. That leaves 1519, whom might go to Bash at the Beach or one of the other late NE offseasons, but while they're great, I doubt they will suddenly grow above and beyond the other "contenders" here.

1114 has an off season well in range of them (Rah Cha Cha Ruckus) but ever since their terrific 2005 robot unleashed a mushroom cloud of agony at the last Canada's Wonderland event they probably aren't too enthused about overtaxing their very much used robot. Plus it didn't help that they haven't found a new home for their off season since Canada's Wonderland got bought out and booted the event out of their park (a big mistake on their behalf).

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

To take your witticism seriously for a minute, I would say not.

Let's take the main contenders for the prize: 1114, 469, 67, 33, 1718, 1519, 294, and 1625 in my opinion as outlined below. Michigan is done with offseasons basically right now, so you can cut those teams out which leaves 294, 1519, and 1625. 294's traditional offseason participation is over, and 1114 and 1625 don't have offseasons in their region. That leaves 1519, whom might go to Bash at the Beach or one of the other late NE offseasons, but while they're great, I doubt they will suddenly grow above and beyond the other "contenders" here.

Excuse me Chris, but we have been working very hard since IRI to work on our robot and learn from mistakes. We now have a pincher, and a hanger/redirector like the beast assembly on top of team 2337 so I would highly watch out for us at River Rage! Oh wait, all that was in my dreams! Not much has happened in our shop since IRI.

I wouldn't say that our robot was one of the best even though that is an honor to be in the same sentence as those robots listed! I would vote for team 67. They were very good on the field in each zone and their hanger took at least 2 seconds of game play to hang. 1114, 33, 254, and 469 come close behind.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Any robot that inspired more than a single student to pursue their passion was the best robot.

No it isn't. You can't have 1200 robots that are all the best. "Best" implies singular. Your definition of "best" can vary, but I don't see any reasonable interpretation of best involving 1000+ in quantity.

I always feel these answers are a GP cop out (sorry for picking on you in particular). The OP would seem to not mean the most happy fuzzy warm feel good robot in FIRST, but the best robot competitively. It's like if you asked someone who the best NFL player is and they said "player xyz because he gives the most money to charity and is a really nice guy".

That said, complete tossup of 469/1114 for me. 469 changed the way the game was played but on their own they were not quite as effective. One on on 1114 is my pick.

Originally Posted by Jon Jack

I agree that 254 should certainly be in the conversation for best robot of the year.

However, I don't think 233 fits in the category. 233 had a rough start to the season (missed elims in Florida and semis in LA). As usual, 233 were masters of continuous improvement and were much better at championships than they were in Florida or LA.

So basically they were like a wild card team making it to the Super Bowl to play the 18-0 Patriots. The results at the final buzzer are all that matters-nobody looks back in history to see what the champion's regular season record was.

Obviously 233 didn't win championships so it's not a perfect analogy and I certainly wouldn't call myself impartial in the discussion, but I think it's shortsighted to not consider a team because they put their strongest performance forth when it mattered the most, and didn't necessarily excel at the regional level.

[CalTran]

I like 2337 for innovation in making a suspension able robot. There's no doubt 469 holds a place in this catagory too; we were paired with them in Atlanta once and they were beastly. One I like that wasn't 469 or 1114 would be team 1625. They were part of the 2nd seed alliance at Greater KC, and did one heck of a good job.

[3286]

Wow...we are getting almost like NASCAR here. While I won't discount anyones posts so far because some of this is very arguable and some is very supportable with statistics, the original question still begs of opinion to me. Cant wait to see the winning teams standing in the spotlight, swapping hats back and forth and saying something like " Well this time the Dewalt, Andymark, Crayola number 7 robot did pretty well but we got a realy good crew and Bubba did a great job today when the back end got loose in turn 4"

How many days till we start again...oh wait, a lot of us havent stopped from last time!!

Mikey