2002 Zone Zeal

[Molten]

Originally Posted by zachmartin1806

FRC games have never stopped allowing you to do some crazy creative things just look at 469 of 2010.

They haven't stopped the flow of creative ideas, but they have certainly kinked the hose a bit.

Jason

[JamesCH95]

Originally Posted by dk5sm5luigi

The Grasshoppers were one of the best teams that year. They were able to pick up 20 balls in no time.

Thanks!



Feynman was the robot, and like the Physicist he was named for, the robot was much loved and an all-time favorite robot of the team. He was the first FRC robot I worked on, so I'm a little partial...

/thread jack

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

While people didn't seem to like the games, and understandably so, seeing pictures and video of great 2001 and 2002 machines is inspiring. I wish FIRST games let people be so off-the-wall and creative now.

I don't know why people hated that game.

I thought it was fantastic. If you had me name my favorite robots ever, a large percentage of them would be from 2002. From a design standpoint there was so much cool stuff that year.

[zachmartin1806]

Originally Posted by Cory

I don't know why people hated that game.

I thought it was fantastic. If you had me name my favorite robots ever, a large percentage of them would be from 2002. From a design standpoint there was so much cool stuff that year.

Even though i wasn't around for the year i completely agree with you.

[Rich Kressly]

wooo
who remembers the 02 UTC New England Regional with Woodie as Emcee?

121, 69, and 103 were able to hold off grasshopper, rage, and others. I'm biased, but what a GREAT set of finals:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...20343059306153

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...33266881795495

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...01710809288310

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...99785300247888

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...87238361322246

edit...oops, and the final match http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...93905769166259

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by Cory

I thought it was fantastic. If you had me name my favorite robots ever, a large percentage of them would be from 2002. From a design standpoint there was so much cool stuff that year.

Totally agree. Teams were all over the map in terms of creativity between how to grab the goals, minibots, ball collectors, strategies....it all just made for an awesome design challenge that was met with tons of creative ideas.

-Brando

[Joe G.]

Originally Posted by Cory

I don't know why people hated that game.

I thought it was fantastic. If you had me name my favorite robots ever, a large percentage of them would be from 2002. From a design standpoint there was so much cool stuff that year.

I don't think anyone would deny that zone zeal was a fantastic engineering challenge. The problem I see with it is that, in general, the best robots were some of the least interesting to watch. A top-notch goal control robot, like team 71, was a remarkable feat of engineering, but to an uninformed spectator, simply resisted attempts to push it.

[Andy Baker]

Originally Posted by Cory

I don't know why people hated that game.

I thought the game was great, up until the finals at IRI, when we had an entanglement issue, and the alliance of 71, 111, and 93 was disqualified.

Andy B.

[Tyler Olds]

Originally Posted by Andy Baker

I thought the game was great, up until the finals at IRI, when we had an entanglement issue, and the alliance of 71, 111, and 93 was disqualified.

Andy B.

Yeah I forget who the referee was for that................

2002 was my sophmore year in FRC and coming from 2001-2004 seasons it was my second favorite (behind 2004). The game involved a lot of strategy on where you were going to go and how and when you were going to position your robot..... A chess match almost. However just like a chess match, it is not always the most exciting thing to watch (though it was almost sad trying to watch teams beat 71 after they grabbed all three goals).

[Kevin Kolodziej]

Originally Posted by Andy Baker

I thought the game was great, up until the finals at IRI, when we had an entanglement issue, and the alliance of 71, 111, and 93 was disqualified.

Andy B.

Man, I hate it when that happens!!

Thanks for pointing me out, Al! Can't believe that was nearly 10 years ago already!

I agree with Cory though. Some of my all-time favorite robots came from that game. I ran into one of the mentors from Rage just a few weeks ago at IRI and he shared a fun story: 173 was the #1 seed in the division. We (71) were somewhere in the middle of the pack, as we always were that year, as the robot was not designed to score well - just win (and back then, rankings were based on points, not w/l records...we would intentionally restrict one of the arms from extending and purposely grab only 2 of the three goals to help with the ranking situation during qualifying). Some members of 173 didn't want to play with us, but others argued that they'd rather play with us than against us, and that's why they ended up picking us. We literally marched through the finals onto Einstein and then in Finals match 2, SPAM 180 beat us to the goals and pushed us back into the barrier and we ended up bending an axle. We sat out for finals match 3 and 173 went out and proved why they were the #1 seed with one of the best ball harvesters I've ever seen. It was so awesome to see an alliance have that kind of diversity. 66 was the third robot and was vital to both game plans - they would help us stay on track when we'd grab all three goals and when 173 was out, they would play some exceptional defense. Oh..and they had the best of the best of the mini-bots too!

Ah, the good old days...

[Techhexium]

Here is the kickoff video for the 2002 game:
http://team358.org/history/videos/2002Kickoff.MPG