The poll is going up soon, and I’m very honored to be on one of the teams mentioned so far. Thank you guys from all of 2169 KING TeC! I’m sorry for any robots that didn’t get mentioned in the poll, your opinions are still very important! I merely included the ones that have been mentioned the most as the most effective.
Is there any footage of this robot in its dominant form? I’ve been looking for years, but the only footage I’ve been able to find is of the match in which they broke a weld and were upset at the world championship. I’ve been hearing for years about how much of a dominant gamechanger this robot was for FRC, and would love to see it in action at the top of its game.
I was very impressed with 1425’s shooter on galileo. They were very slippery on the defense, and had the ability to strafe towards the pyrimid when being defended by a blocker and shoot through the pyrimid very accurately. Favorite robot on that field by far. They even toasted us in a qual match.
Our robot was at its peak performance at the denver regional, there we had the possibility of doing the 45, but as the shooter was used so much there was some deteriation going on to champs which we could never rectify completely. The thing had a knack for jamming/tipping right at the most critical of times. IE. finals on galileo. It doesn’t feel as bad when you lose to the eventual world champs though :rolleyes: .
I’m making a plug for 610 here just for the fact that the could go 6ish cycles regardless of the defense that was played on them. Now that was truely impressive.
KINGTeC’s 2013 Robot was incredible - until MN State in 2013 when a rookie team made 2169 cycle :yikes:
No doubt that 2175 and 2052 won that one outright…
2169’s 2013 robot seems really out of place in this poll. There are several 2013 robots that I would say were more dominant than 2169, certainly more flexible. 2169 was a good full court shooter, but they weren’t THAT much better at it than any number of other full court shooters, and they obviously we’re quite limited when forced to cycle. To be quite honest I don’t understand why everyone is talking about them like they were some kind of game breaker.
The best 2013 robot was probably 469, who excelled at all aspects of the game except for full pyramid climbing. The flexibility of their driver being able to switch from full court shooting to cycling on the fly, sneaking off full court shots when undefended and cycling while defended, complete with floor pick up and multiple autonomous modes, made them probably the most dangerous robot at the Championship.
Objectively I’d say 71 in 2002, but as my then-team 827 got totally owned by the 71 2001 robot, subjectively I’d say 71 2001. We latched onto a goal and then got dragged around for two minutes as if we weren’t even there, and there wasn’t a darn thing we could do about it.
1998 - Team 47 Chief Delphi
I love that we still don’t have a consensus on who the best robot of that year was. It just goes to show how great of a game Ultimate Ascent was.
The best disc-scoring robots were 469 and 987, who were relatively equal, with 987 having the edge during autonomous and 469 having the edge during teleop.
254 and 1986 were the only robots that year with both 7-disc autonomous modes and 30 point climbs, and both were also excellent in teleop, although 254’s consistency left something to be desired sometimes.
1114 and 2056 excelled at specific roles, and I’d argue that they both built the ideal robot for what they were trying to do that year.
If I were the #1 seed, and I had the option of choosing any of these robots, I don’t know who I would select. It would obviously depend on what my robot could do, but it would be a difficult, difficult choice.
Interestingly enough, only one of the robots listed above made Einstein that year.
If we are talking about 2169 in 2013, I’d argue more for 2052 in 2013. They were one of the most accurate cylers ever, could switch to full court shooting in a matter of seconds and shoot quickly, and had a quick 10 pt hang. Highly underrated robot that year.
But I agree with the overall consensus that 469 was the most effective bot in 2013.
Heck, a case could be made for 842, who was capable of doing everything that year IIRC. They weren’t perfect nor the best, but they were a swiss knife out there sometimes.
There have been a select few robots that have satisfied the following criteria:
- Won all of their events, including the World Championship
- Were either the #1 alliance captain or first overall pick at all of their events
While I’m not saying this list is contains, objectively, the most effective robots ever, it is clear that they were dominant. And to someone like me who heavily values event wins and high seedings over more “soft” achievements like being highly effective in a match or two here or there, these robots have most effectively fulfilled the game challenge.
1678 in 2015
254 in 2014 (Waterloo #2 alliance captain; probably should have been first overall pick)
254 in 2011 (Galileo #2 alliance captain; probably should have been first overall pick)
67 in 2009
1114 in 2008 (Midwest #3 alliance captain; probably was or should have been first overall pick)
Honorable Mentions:
118 in 2015 (#2 alliance captain at Dallas; #1 alliance captain 148 chose 987 and lost to 118 in the finals)
469 in 2010 (soooooooooo close!)
The shooter was broken our very last match at champs from a tip, which is why we were not nearly as competitive at state. If we FCS’d we would have made ~60% of the shots in that condition tops.
I think it’s incredibly telling that one of the robots in the running competed over a decade ago (Coming up on nearly 15 years ago actually), only exists in stories and a few grainy videos, and yet is still as ubiquitous as it is today.
My vote is for the 2002 BEAST.
Thanks for the shoutout. That was my last year as a student and although it is one of our team’s favorite robots, it was probably one of our least effective ones in recent years. It was super over complicated and we spent so much time fixing rather than iterating and practicing with it. It was an attempt to be a utility arm robot like 67 in 2012 but we didn’t focus on making it as simple as possible. For some reason we also neglected to think of gravity as a valid way to load the frisbees. 
Overall it’s the simple concept of being the jack of all trades and master of none that we fell into and it showed on the field and during alliance selections.
If we could do it over, we would likely have made a robot like 610 or 1986.
I know and totally agree! The early days of FIRST truly put out some amazing design ideas, many of which have been limited with today’s countless regulations and build rules. I still gawk at designs like 111 Wildstang in 2004, or to go wayyyy back, Texas Instruments’ robot in 1994. For some reason I am amazed by the execution of this design, and am extremely entertained by watching it.
Sometimes being 2nd best is better than the best overall pick. Such the case at Waterloo 2014 also. This…at least in the eyes of the #1 seed. In both cases, it involved 1114.
I have to disagree with everyone saying 71 in 2002 was the most dominant. In 2002, 71 was beatable, and the last match of champs that year was won by 66 and 173, not 71.
You wanna know who wasn’t beatable, at all? 71 in 2001. The nature of that game made it that no one, no one could stop them.
At least, that’s what I heard from listening to Karthik :yikes:
We had 1717 at a slight edge over 2056 on Curie in 2013. Both of them (and 1310 and 359) turned us down…
To be fair, 1717 paired with 1678 better than 2056 that year. 1717 could full court and cycle as well, while 2056 was a pure floor pickup, like 1678.