I still go back to the Beatty robot from 1997. By far, more dominant than any other robot since…including the dominating 2001 Beatty robot.
Go back and look at the video (if you can find it)…
Beatty, stops at human player, turns around, caps, game over in 6 seconds. We timed it.
Name me a robot in the past 16 years that could win a match in 6 seconds? I think you’d be hard pressed to find one.
Could you describe what they did and what their strategy was?
In 1997, the main objective of the game was to take innertubes and hang them on a goal much similar to the one we had this year. The difference was you could get big points for scoring on the apex of the goal. Many teams would actually have a cap which you could load up with tubes and place on the apex. What Beatty did, was unfold, stop at the human player so the human player could place his whole stack on the cap. They then would turn around and cap the apex of the goal. Each tube on the cap would double the score. From there, they would score on the lower rungs to offset any teams who capped over the cap they had on the goal.
They were nearly unstoppable, though Delphi did get to them in one round.
I don’t know about the best, but my favorites are
2003- 980- I loved this robot, it had so many awesome features, like the 13 foot arm, the lift that also turned into “wings” for knocking over boxes, and an awesome wheel switching transmission
2004- 330- awesome, easily my favorite Beach Bot, they did a good job thinking out of the box, and the robot was very well designed
2005- 22/254/968- beautiful, very well designed robots
2006- 254/968- very effective top goal scorer
2007- 75- I only saw them saw them play one match, but their robot is beautiful, and very well engineered
2004 - 60/254
2005 - 22/254
2006 - 254/968
2007 - 254/968
See any patterns?
Beyond best robot, there is best driver. There are a lot of robots out there that would be middle-of-the-pack if not for outstanding driving. 330 in both 2005 and 2007 comes to mind.
as for 1997…ut oh, here comes the neg reps, i see them now but oh well…there were 3 great robots…71 47 65. and hey…that was the championship at nationals that year. beatty won matches in 6 seconds, 65 in 7 and 47 in 8…at least thats what i heard from people that were there.
I remember the tiger on the side. Cool working and looking machine!
#1) HOT in 2000.
The robot was awesome; could basically do forward and backward flips, and was very aesthetically pleasing. I went out of my way to watch every match that they were a part of and was amazed every time
#2) I’ll agree with Andy Baker: Chief Delphi, also in 2000
It was the beginning of dominant crab drives…so smooth
A few more votes:
1997: 71 was truely amazing scoring faster and higher than most of us imagined possible.
1999: Our robot was pretty good that year 
2002: 173 was harvesting balls so fast it was nearly impossible to keep up with them.
2006: I know they had some troubles in their regionals but 296 built a super bot and came through on the big field with some excellent partners: 217 and the best third pick of the year 522.
2007: The best year for alliances, no single robot dominated eleimination matches this year. Very Exciting for all of us.
I agree there…but I guess thats why you have partners. In the event theyre very solid strategy didnt work out, they had a great partner (173) to pick up the slack.
I just think about their overall strategy and am amazed everytime. They saw right through the balls and said if we get the goals, whats the point of balls.
95 harvested balls faster than anyone could have imagined 
beatty in 2002.
“I hate to say it’s over folks but there ain’t much hope”
I would have to say the HOT BOT from either '04 or '05. They were just dominant at what they did.
Unless they went up against spam of course…
Thats what is driving me nuts about this thread 2002 beatty was a darned good robot but if I remember correctly Fluffy kind of showed him who was boss.
Now granted they didn’t win it all, but it was an impressive show none the less.
2002 was a good year, but a bad game. However my personal favorite of all time does come out of that year in team 60. The way they lifted up those two goals and spun them around was one of the most beautiful and inspiring piece of engineering I’ve seen this side of FIRST in years.
Beatty 02 Dominated a Season, coming as close to solving a head to head game as i believe is possible.
Spam 02 dominated a match…
In my mind there’s a slight difference.
Not to take anything away from spam 02 through however; between the Wildstang spatula, and the owning of the Beast on the biggest stage possible, they go down in my mind of one of the best teams from that year.
Chris
PS My vote for the robot in this thread Karthik Style
2000 - 25, 47, 111, 131, 126
2001 - 71, 254, 60, 177, 308
2002 - 71, 60, 308, 121, 111
2003 - 111, 25, 469, 494, 118 (67, 1114 wrong strategy but impressive anyway)
2004 - 45, 67, 254/60, 494,233
2005 - 67, 217, 254, 330, 71
2006 - 25, 1114, 111, 254/968, 469
2007 - 1114, 330, 254/968, 71,
The 2005 Tech Fusion robot was, in my opinion, the best. I remember that year in buckeye, it was incredible.
It’s interesting that 10 people have voted for 1114 as the best robot of 2007, yet they got shut out of technical awards at the Greater Toronto Regional.
edit: maybe the judges didn’t see the same robot i did…
they definitely deserved a few.
I’m surprised there’s any debate over the most dominant robot in FIRST history: IMHO, The 71 bot in 2001 was by far the best ever. No bot in the world could beat it - the only way it could lose was if they made a mistake or had a malfunction, otherwise everyone else was playing for second. Heck, 254 and 111 were considered by many to have the 2nd and 3rd most dominant robots that year, and even paired together with 33 at the Championship in 2001 they couldn’t match 71. Must be tough for Beatty to have to struggle through the debate of which robot was the most dominant ever - the 71 bot in 97, the 71 bot in 01 or the 71 bot in 02. Kind of a no lose situation if there ever was one. 
For 2002 - I’m surprised many forgot the Team 60 robot. Once 60 got some glitches worked out at the first regional, they could not be moved when they latched onto the goals (even 2 on 1, and it didn’t matter how/where teams pushed them). If my memory is correct (I don’t have the video), even with a broken arm they had the Beatty alliance beat in the Championship semifinals except that their partner lost power heading back to the home zone and didn’t get the 10 point bonus. But both 71 and 60 were clearly amazing robots in 2002, so it’s splitting hairs either way.
Anyway, attempting a list of the 10 best robots of all time:
71 - 2001
60 - 2002
47 - 2000
111 - 2003
60 & 254 - 2004
Triplets - 2006
71 - 2002
I give up - it’s hard to finish any top 10 list. In addition to the teams above, which many would list as having top 5 robots in probably 3-5 different years, any “top 10 of all-time” list seems incomplete to me without teams 330, 45 and 25 included - multiple years with amazing robots. So I’ll reserve my last 3 spots for those three teams - though there are many other incredible teams & robots certainly right there with all those listed above.
I can’t comment on any year before 1998, which was my first. But I will add that the four “teams” that clearly stood out the most for me in the early years as having the biggest impact on FIRST and the most inspiring/intimidating robots to us “newbies” (at least in my case) were 45, 47, 71 and 111. I credit those veteran teams (and a number of others) with raising the FIRST “bar” in a way that motivated hundreds of teams to improve their own programs.