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.
They didn’t win IRI that year 
To add even more fuel to this fire. 118 easily could take aim as being the best robots that year. Even after stripping away the climb and full court they had one of the fastest load times in the world (matched only by 469) and were an excellent front court sweeper when they needed to be.
My vote will always go to 469 as the best/most complete robot, and 1114 as the most valuable robot for 2013.
Umm… with our (4607’s) 84" blocker? Probably not - we scouted 2169 at Champs and placed the ugly addition heading into the Tournament - which is why we placed that on. When 4656 was picked just ahead of us (another defensive robot), 2052 and 2175 had little to choose from for defense bots. Mind you, our rookie robot was nothing to be admired looking back - but it did its job.
I do agree, however, that there were some issues with 2169 at State that year. We do wish 2169 was at State this year, we have learned a lot from 2169 in the last few years - still one of the best programs in the state!
3476 had a load time competitive with both 118 and 469, as they could load two at once similar to 469. Every time I watched them load their machine I constantly thought they drove away before they finished loading their hopper, but no, they were just that fast.
It’s very hard to define a “best” robot for 2013 because of all the different ways to score and all of the different needs of varying alliances, but I think with all the different ways to score it has to go to a team that gets “extra” points one way or another, be it via pyramid climbing or autonomous or what have you. 1114’s fast, consistent climb added points that were more scarce than 7 disk autons, and their cycling was among the best in competition, so there’s a strong argument to be had for them. Yet, 67 at their peak simply got more disks in the goal. Ultimately I think 469 was the best simply because they could play any role on an alliance (excluding climbing) at the very top level - they were one of the best cyclers, one of the best autons, AND one of the best full court shooters, all with the same robot, without compromising effectiveness in any of them. THAT is very rare in FRC.
I would say 2015 wave robotics robot. That machine was so INCREDIBLE but, to
bad it didn’t win in Einstein.