Hey CD,
After watching championships for the past few days, I’ve been thinking about what the best matches in FRC history might be. I’d like to hear input from people about matches from numerous years. Your nomination could be because it won some teams a regional or a championship, because of a high score, because of a cool moment or an awesome intro, etc. If you have video to go along with it that would be great!
Any of the three Einstein matches in 2008 between 1114, 217, 148 vs. 233, 968, 60. Those matches were epic. I still watch them quite often for entertainment.
One of the most memorable match moments IMO was in the 2009 Midwest Semifinals, It was the second match between a 111 and 1625 alliance (they ended up winning the regional) and a 217 led alliance. The 217 alliance was down the entire match but a last second super cell full court throw from 2022’s human player was scored and shot them into the lead. 111 and 1625 went on to win the rubber match but it was still very exciting when it happened.
The best moment in any match that I have been involved in was 2009 Newton Semifinal 1-2. The number 5 seed alliance, 1507, 121, and 177 was down 1 match to the powerhouse 1 seed of 1625, 234, and 768. It was a tight, defensive match, but at the end, 177’s human player hit a buzzer beater full court shot (literally from one corner of the field to the far alliance wall) that somehow bounced into 234’s trailer as time expired. In the end, it didn’t change the outcome of the match but it was the most exciting moment I’ve ever seen in FIRST. You can see the video if you go to http://www.rhodewarrior.org/video/index.html and click 2009 then Semifinal 1 Match 2.
I was only in FIRST for one year, but I’m gonna have to agree with you on this one, I was the photographer for 4143 at World, and this was by far the hardest match I had watched the whole season. We missed Einstein by this much
I don’t remember a video of this one, but 27 shot corner-to-corner in 2008 for a game-winning hurdle. Note that this is a 40" trackball we’re talking about, going 8 feet in the air at peak, going diagonally across an FRC field. I don’t know that match, or even remember what event, but I remember it was talked about for a while.
For me, my favorite match, without a doubt, is Finals Match 1 on Einstein from 2010. 469 + 1114, thought to be unstoppable, defeated by HOT’s buzzer beater hang to win by 2 points. What makes this match so very special is that there is 0 video of this post buzzer hang, just Blair saying “watch this machine fly” and the video pans over to 1114 as the buzzer sounds, they have already pulled off their hang and are just sitting there but 67 is still pulling up, worst camera move in the history of FIRST.
Yep. If you scored the balls into a goal that was in your scoring zone (the one just across the midfield zone from you), they were worth points. If you scored them into a goal in your opponents’ scoring zone, they got the points. Moving a goal from your zone to your opponents’ zone, or vice versa, changed which alliance they scored for. BUT… moving the goal out of one of the goal scoring zones entirely meant no ball points and no goal points for anybody, IIRC.
I know we won an offseason because we had one more ball in our goals than our opponents did, or something like that–they hand counted those.
Best or most memorable? Certainly the infamous Match 100 of Curie back in 2010 would make it onto the list! It was the only match of it’s kind, after they figured a potential flaw in the ranking system that year.
At IRI last year, 118, 16, and 624 got a high score for Rebound Rumble (136) and after triple balancing, 118 scored a 3 pointer off of the bridge! It was exciting to watch.
Us RoboDawgs are happy to have been a part of that match! Definitely our most fun match of the entire year! I mean, it’s not often that you get to be in a match with the likes of Simbotics, WildStang, and Las Guerillas!