Gotta consider 67 too. Multi-position shooter with full court and cycle shots. 30pt climber with a 20pt dump. Could go under the pyramid. They were defendable, which is what ultimately led to their demise, but in terms of overall effectiveness, 67 needs to be considered.
However, I personally would pick 469.
My opinion on no order:
71 in 2002, like a can grabber in 2015 but worse.
469 in 2010, we were actually allied at MSC and won. Literally a five minute drive to their school. (yes I know that’s irrelevant)
254 in 2014, don’t think much needs to be said here.
16 in 2014, just as a personal favorite.
On a separate note, some favorite rookies:
2834 in 2009 (not to brag or anything…)
5053 in 2014, good drivers meant so much for Aerial Assist.
4967 in 2014, same reason. Good drivers were crucial, regardless of shooting capabilities.
5980 in 2016, managed to get #5 seed at MSC, arguably the most competitive DC around, and even eliminated us in Octo-Finals.
Their robot was not at all built for quals. You got 3x the losers score, so if Beatty had all 3 goals the highest losing score the opponent was going to get is 20 points (10 per robot in home zone at end of match).
If I remember correctly, a thrown ball got stuck under them before they could grab the goals and that lead to their loss in elims.
I wasn’t around back in 2011, but from the videos, 254 was one of the most dominant robots on the field. Perhaps it was the introduction of their motion profiling, but the way 254 played in the Einstein finals just dominated every other robot on the field.
Right. There were many matches where Beatty intentionally didn’t control all three goals in an effort to help increase the losers score.
I would probably have to say that the 71 machine in 2002 was the best I’ve ever heard of, BUT, it was from a different era of FIRST. In the modern era, my few favorite machines are, in no particular order:
1717 in 2012: The robot was just absolutely magical. Nobody swerves like 1717, and their drivers manually targeted shots faster and better than most teams that used vision. (Also I am ridiculously sad that we didn’t get to see what 1717 would’ve cooked up for Stronghold).
341 in 2012: A super simple machine, and indisputably, fantastically effective at playing every aspect of the game.
469 in 2010: The closest thing since 2002 Hammond that we’ve had to a game-breaking robot. And their genius was that it wasn’t ridiculously complex, just bold and perfectly executed.
67 in 2013: I just really love it. 30 pt climb, dump, full court shot, cycle: that robot had it all.
Most effective at the game or most effective at their chosen task in a given year. I enjoy looking at robots that are the absolute best at what they choose to do. For that reason I have to give a hat tip to FRC148 and FRC102 for their lap runner robots in 2008 and FRC1503 for thier human load only robot in 2011.
If we are talking overall; I’ll fall in line with a number of other posters; FRC71 2002, FRC1114 2008, FRC 254 2014.
To insert a robot into this conversation that hasn’t been mentioned yet, CD 2000.
Every year in the preseason, we talk about a chokehold strategy, and every year, we show video of Team 71 2002. Easily the most effectively executed strategy/robot in FRC.
However, that’s far before my time, so I’m going to go ahead with 2169 King Tec and their monstrous FCS in 2013. Their shooter only took ~2 shots to dial in perfectly, and unless you threw up a 7’ blocker in front of them, you could only watch as discs piled into their opponent’s goal. Given maybe 10 extra seconds in teleop and playing undefended, I’m sure that they could shoot all 45 discs into the opponent’s goal, a stat that no other team can challenge.
1114 in 2015 is a close second IMO, they built stacks from the landfill or the HP station (RAMP RAMP RAMP) like no other team could, and they had a very effective cangrabber at CMP as well.
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:
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!)