to have fun with todays holiday i though it might be fun to see what teams though the scariest FRC robot was. I will leave what scariest means up for interpretation
I will start it off
Can you say harpoon cannons?
The worst part was talking with the MC that was going to have to walk around on the field with this thing fully loaded!
The robot uprising is coming for your chairs first, people.
Definitely the scariest this decade.
Also worthy of consideration:
180, 2002. They called it Fluffy, because there was nothing cuddly about this thing at all. This was the robot that smashed a dominant 71 into the barrier and busted their wheel mount in Einstein finals, because that was the only way anyone was going to stop them.
25, 2003. Originally titled Opportunity Knocks, this robot was beastly on the top of the hill that year–including knocking their own alliance partner off. That led game announcer to proclaim “That is an evil machine!” The name has been applied to most-if-not-every 25 robot since.
I don’t remember the team, but one robot in 2014 used a car suspension spring for launching the ball by catapult. I was scared to be near it when it was in compression.
Being anywhere around the field or the pits when 2013 (Cybergnomes) have either their 2014 or 2016 robot.
1114’s 2015 robot.
Team 60 Bulldogs 2002 robot spinning two mobile goals around…you didn’t go anywhere near it.
Team 125 Nutrons 2008 robot that almost took out lighting trusses at multiple events shooting the 40" ball with garage door springs.
Easy. Team 71’s, Team Hammond, robot from 2002. I know it gets brought up a lot in these types of threads but it deserves it. That thing was pretty much unstoppable. Once it got its hooks in the goals there was nothing stopping it. Also, knowing that they were gonna win their third straight Championship was scary also. Deserved, but scary. There’s a reason they’re the Beast.
A very close second would be Team 60, Bionic Bulldogs, from 2002. I was lucky enough to be around when they came to our pre-ship scrimmage and got to see that thing up close and personal. Just for fun, they lifted the two goals and spun them around. It was insane how much power that thing had. Also, it was FAST. They had a very early iteration of shifting gearboxes and man, that thing could move.
You likely weren’t talking about us, but in 2014 we used four (4) 500lb. springs and it was scary. Scary enough that it struggled to pass inspection. That catapult rocked the whole robot every time it fired. And I’m pretty sure that if the cable that pulled the spring mechanism had snapped it would have ripped the entire robot apart. Another robot that was pretty scary was 1619’s 2013 robot. You would watch it scale the pyramid and it turned out that scaling by the corner although ingenious was really scary because the whole pyramid would shake every time the bumpers passed a rung.
FRC1519’s robot kicking Dean in the face with a soccer ball!
Easily these.
Also, if we’re talking about robots that sound scary, 5817 and 5012’s 2016 robots both had shooters that sounded like leafblowers when they spun up, and 5817’s shot looked like it had the potential to mess someone up if it went astray.
Any of 276’s (RIP in Peace) “rotary walker” bots.
Talk about a slasher - this guy would (inadvertently) climb on top of other robots and rip and rend their innards to pieces.
Back in the day, I believe FIRST used a video of their biggest rotary walker (I think it was their 2003 robot) climbing on top of another robot as part of some promo video. I believe they called that robot “Goliath”.
I’m not sure if this was their largest iteration:
[img2]https://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/img/a0c/a0cb6764b06e93eaac9f795ed2cce76c_l.jpg[/img2]
(Koko Ed likes this. He loves him some Mad Cows.)
I’m surprised 2826 in 2015 hasn’t been mentioned yet. That thing looked like it wanted to eat my firstborn child. To quote myself in an earlier thread:
Visually stunning in the sense that whenever I saw them they made me pee my pants and run away.
<edit>meant in the best way possible</edit>[/quote]
How about 33, 2014 bot? I mean it basically looked like a coffin on wheels, and the noise it made when they shot… thumbPOP! 
Thanks for finding that link for me!
Speaking as someone that worked on making these grabbers, that thing was terrifying. This teather-able cheesecake mechanism had far more power than our actual robot did, just look how far it lofted the cinder blocks and sand bags holding it down.
Working on our 2010 robot’s kicker was also scary, I have no doubt it would shatter bones, not break them.
Both 195’s 2014 and 2016 robots have tried to kill me.
In 2014, the robot was halfway through the firing sequence when it was disabled at the end of the match. When I tried to move it even a little bit in an effort to turn it off and put the safety in, the punch mechanism fired. It came about an inch from my nose.
In 2016, I was helping a student place the robot on the ground while @ IRI. We were in a rush and carelessly forgot to put the safety in while moving it. While placing it on the ground, posture had me bent over the center of the bot. The impact of the ground led the robot to fire the catapult, knocking my safety glasses off my face. The corner of my safety glasses cut my eyelid open as they flew off.
I need to be more careful around stored energy… ::ouch::
FRC 340’s 2015 robot looked like a black mantis with it’s long can grabbing mechanisms. It looks like it wants to swipe an unaware volunteer from the side of the field and devour them alive to show the audience what it’s capable of. One time the tether broke loose at Tech Valley and one of the arms got caught in 195 and came precariously close to tearing out some parts of 195’s innards.
We didn’t have any velocity control on this arm (we ran it through a Spike), so when it came down it was rather scary. (One of the many names for that robot was (appropriately) The Rim Reaper.)
Team 620 in 2013. Without a doubt the hardest shooting robot I saw all season. (Full court shooting from bottom right):
And Team 4084 in 2012:
I feel bad for any robot those things were strapped onto.
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