Those modules are so pretty… is anything close to that compact that we have now?
I’m not aware of any. I wonder how small you could make it these days with a smaller wheel and modern motors like a Neo 550 or Kraken x44.
1 Like
234 (2003):
They were far from the only team to employ an arm like this, but theirs was probably the biggest and coolest of them
469 (2006):
Nobody shot faster
1625 (2008):
Birth of the “Choo-choo” mechanism (plus a custom swerve drive)
3 Likes
Personal favorites from when I started as a student through 2019:
2019: 6443, a small robot that mostly flew under the radar but had a really cool way of getting up on the platform, literally flipping the entire robot over to get up there
2018: 254, I mean, that was just a thing of beauty
2017: 1986, 8 wheel mech drive, yes please
2016: 16, swerve is always the answer
2015: 2826, Micky Mouse auto routine, absolutely incredible
2014: 3824, carbon-fiber 3d printed everything (including the frame of the robot), this was a crazy robot
2013: 33, such a smooth machine that year (and every year)
And a few older favorites:
2002: 71 and 343, the walking robot and the metal wheeled omni drive, the pair collectively responsible for the “traction devices must be a flexible material” rule (in fairness each team had fully tested their metal traction devices and they did not damage the carpet, what damaged the carpet was when teams would try to pull against them and spin their wheels generating enough heat to melt the carpet)
2008: 823, team name Oscar, robot looked like a trash can with Oscar the Grouch popping out to knock the ball off the rail 10/10 theming
3 Likes
My Time Has Come
Gonna go with one team who I only got to watch compete or competed with at worlds and one I competed with at a regional (also going to try to avoid too many robots already featured):
2006:
357 Royal Assault - They had these magic wheels called mecanum and were able to move sideways. This blew my mind.
25 Raider Robotix - No ground pickup no problem. Undefeated till worlds they were the robot that showed me you didn’t have to do everything to be ultra competitive
2007:
1902 Exploding Bacon - Taking major inspiration from the simple 2005 robots who were dominant this robot was dead simple and looked so easy to repair I was so jealous of those who got to work on it and drive it as it was also very good.
330 The Beach Bots - This was the first robot I ever watched that I knew was just so much better than what my team could produce at the time. It really blew me away and was a big inspiration on my FIRST journey.
2008:
233 The Pink Team - Similar to above with 330, this was the first robot I got to see up close (very much so when it ran off it’s blocks and hit me as I was walking by their pit) and thought we did not have the technology available to us to make. I had seen previous Pink Arms but this was another level with how beefy it was and just how pretty everything was. )
148 Robowranglers - Run laps go brrr. The robot that got me super interested in thinking about the game differently. There was an amazing amount of engineering to that robot that was basically a drivetrain and an actuator
2009:
180 S.P.A.M. - Just overall a big fan of this robot and wished the drop down drive train at Swamp Scrimmage would have survived to the field.
118 Robonauts - Less is more personified also the last robot of their previous color scheme. I was really impressed how good they were without an intake, well usually without an intake.
2010:
1251 TechTigers - There climb was just so cool and it was the first robot with treads I got to see up close
148 Robowranglers - The birth of the modern reveal video. So much was so cool about this video and robot i was so excited to see it at worlds, and then so much of it wasn’t on the robot anymore lol
2011:
233 The Pink Team - This robot went from a pile of nothing to regional winner in front of my eyes and it was magical to watch. This might not be the best robot of even this year but it is up there to me as one of the best engineered robots of all time. Not a single unnecessary ounce of weight on this robot as everything is machined to perfection and no mechanism is superfluous or takes up more space than it should
118 Robonauts - Perfected the modern reveal after 148 created it. The first robot I saw on video and did not think I could beat, and I didn’t understand how it did some of the things it did.
2012:
180 S.P.A.M. - There was nothing to this robot that no one else couldn’t make, no fancy camera tracking, no wild custom machining. Just robot, driven well and maximizing it’s potential all the way to being the world champion.
548 Robostangs - No one else looked anything like them and they were just so fun to watch because of it.
2013:
4451 ROBOTZ Garage - This one is going to be tough to explain because you just had to be there man. No one else could as easily climb to the third level at the events I was at and here was this rookie robot who would just do there own thing and nearly won Orlando because of it.
1538 The Holy Cows - Just one of the best ground intakes in the world and was so fun to watch on Newton
2014:
4026 Decatur Robotics - This one is also kind of weird to explain but they had a full gear drivetrain, no chain. The first time they pushed us sideways I was so confused because no one had been able to do that all season. Then when they flipped the robot in the pits and started cooling their drivetrain with upside down cans of air I understood.
254 The Cheesy Poofs - The fact every post isn’t just this shows how young chief delphi is, also how dominant they were in 2018 to overshadow this absolute monster. No one was playing the same game as 254 in 2014 and this robot is what I consider the transition into modern FRC.
2015:
1592 Bionic Tigers - We just wholesale stole their tote stacker design, had they not been around our robot would have been awful.
2826 Wave Robotics - Another robot that is forgotten to a lot of delphi. This robot was also crazy and was just so dominant at the time. The robot that most likely would have won any 1v1 that year.
2016:
16 Bomb Squad - They just looked so smooth in person, like the defenses didn’t affect them at all. This was the robot that made me start every kick off with “but swerve would be so good this game”.
4678 CyberCavs - I wake up at night sometimes wondering what could have been had we picked CyberCavs on Newton (no disrespect to 3620 we had a great time with you all). They were just such a solution to the defense problem and would have made elims so much easier (also denying them to alliance 7 would have helped everyone)
2017
180 S.P.A.M. - Forgotten in a field of fuel shooters was the best gear runner on the planet. There was nothing to this robot and everyone who wasted time on building a shooter that never worked wishes they built this robot.
4613 Barker Redbacks - I just really liked their actuations this year. Were they the best shooter or gear runner? No but did I get the most enjoyment watching them in a game I did not enjoy watching much? Yes
2018:
4481 Team Rembrandts - Was not a big fan of most wheeled cube shooters this year but 4481 was the exception. They really came into their own in Orlando and we had a blast with them and their little robot.
971 Spartan Robotics - Another pick due to just looking so different. They were so unique and so fun to watch in 2018
2019:
2383 Ninjineers - I wish the turret worked, it would have been so cool if it did but they took it off. The intake climber was different from how everyone else did it. Plus they still made one of my favorite frc videos of all time.
971 Spartan Robotics - Not biased at all on this one. But seriously so much about this robot really made me rethink everything I knew about making an FRC robot.
12 Likes
I am personally a fan of 254 The Cheesy Poofs robot in 2023, breakdown was just in good in design as it was in skill!
once again, there are lots to choose from here
most obvious ones that come to mind are
71 2002
111 2003
190 2007
23 2019 and 2020
1519 and 2826 2015
121 2006 and 2009
47 2000
177 2010 (we love tall robots for short game)
330 2016
3719 2017
3236 2018 
2084 2014 (may have been the first robot in competition to catch a truss shot)
and pretty much anything from the Behind the Design books (2015, 2006, 2007)
I know there are others that I am forgetting here and I may add them later
3 Likes
2019:
It was very difficult to build a “simple” robot in 2019 that played the game at the highest level - notably because of the difficulty of both scoring in the rocket and climbing the HAB.
The Greybots then built a robot with a single stage elevator (couldn’t reach L3 of the rocket) and used that same elevator to climb. 973 went on to win the world championship with that. Incredible tradeoffs made!
I was also a very big fan of 870. Their hatch mechanism was much simpler than most teams, they used a sideways elevator really effectively to package it all nicely, and their climber wasn’t too complex.
2018
I was a big fan of robots this year that found simple and elegant ways to reach level-2-tipped-away on the scale.
340 had their elevator start the match tilted inside frame perimeter and had it pneumatically actuate to vertical, allowing them to use the length of the diagonal of the starting configuration while only using a 2 stage elevator.
My team ended up stealing 148’s intake that pulled cubes up onto it and sideways, which both added extra height and made them take up less space on the scale.
2017
My favorite robots for this season are ones that found a way to score 40kPa in the simplest possible way. For this, 33 and 4967 take the cake. Both teams shot sideways at the boiler with a fixed angle shooter. But in order to make it work, they had to remove the shooter and rotate it 180 degrees whenever they switched alliance colors! You can watch them face each other here.
Obviously honorable mention to every team that was a bucket and a climber - 229 and 3624 were my favorites for this.
2016
Making the ballsy decision to not only forgo the low bar, but also not climb the tower and STILL win a world championship - 2481 blew me away in 2016. They also simplified as much as possible! Their shooter had two angles only - pneumatically actuated. So smart, so efficient, and an incredibly good robot to boot.
2015
1730 took the relatively common ramp-through-the-elevator concept, added a big ole’ door that served to stabilize their stacks of 6 with a can and also enable their autonomous tote stack. Very cool, very simple design that made many of us feel silly to not have thought of it.
2014
I’m a sucker for teams that do well by reducing scope. There were plenty of good teams in 2014 than did this by not being able to score high goals from many locations, or by optimizing for trussing instead of finishing. There were even plenty of very good teams that eschewed shooting at all to focus on inbounding. But only one team I know of had success - winning a regional and being picked at the championship - without the ability to intake off the floor.
900 found their niche by having a high release point and extremely powerful shot to make their truss shots unblockable. They made their part of the cycle indefensible, which was difficult to do in a game that physical. And they did all of that while completely eschewing floor intake.
Other notables are 27’s unique design for really optimizing for getting assists and passing the ball tot he human player, and maybe the most underrated robot of 2014 - 177. The Bobcat’s high release point and wide catching area made them a phenomenal finisher, being able to score from nearly the full front zone with the same flat shot under duress.
2013
2169 was an absurdly accurate full court shooter. But the thing that makes them my favorite was that to line up with the goal, they just put their bumpers flat against the wall. Their shooter was fixed, mounted at the exact correct angle to make the shot from flat against the angled feeder station wall.
Absurdly smart, super simple, and it won them two regionals and a division finalist berth at champs.
2012
67’s 2012 robot is my favorite of all time. Watching them play the game at the championship in 2012 was incredible - they only ever shot from the key - I’m pretty sure they had a fixed hood angle - but that was good enough! You didn’t need to shoot from any closer or any further away!
Then they optimized the hardest, most random-feeling part of the game by being the best balancer in the world, bar none.
4 Likes
My favorite robot ever is 5499’s 2017 robot, which epitomizes simple and effective design. I still remember seeing it in person at SFR, and talking to their team members. It went undefeated at the Idaho regional that year, and helped win the world championship.
One fact that I remember from their Industrial Design Award blurb is that 5499 only had three weeks access to their build space that year.
6 Likes
Insane that they’ve only gotten a passing mention so far. 1717’s 2012 robot was almost a decade ahead of its time.
This swerve drive broke through and became a sensation. They scored faster than anyone, their double sided intake was effortless, and they drove like they had been perfecting that swerve for years in an era when it was still a huge lift to build one.
14 Likes
47 Chief Delphi 1998. Three Regionals, three wins, no alliance partners.
4 Likes
This was far before my time in FRC, but I’ve done a lot of looking backwards and have seen so many cool robots.
2019:
254 - I know I’ve heard 254 regretted making this bot, but its just so cool how many DoF it has, and how they somehow made it work.
2018:
1678 - the platform climb just looks cool, what can I say
2017:
118 - dual flywheel shooter is very cool, and the gear mech is pretty cool
Honorable mention - 751: we did quite well with our consistent omnidirectional gear intake and could pull of 7 gear cycles when others could only do 3-4. Definitely the robot I use to show how simple can be good.
2016:
330 - the self-righting moment was crazy, and I didn’t even see it live. One of those Einstein moments that give you chills even if you don’t have stakes in the fight
2015:
specifically the 1114/900 cheesecaked quad harpoon bot. Insane it got working in that short of a time and is also just insanely cool
I haven’t researched as much before that, but a smattering of things like 1717’s 2012 swerve and things of that sort come to mind
2008 - 148
2009 - 111
2010 - 469
2011 - 111
2012 - 973
2013 - 118
2014 - 971/254
2015 - 148
2016 - 971
2017 - 254
2018 - 254
2019 - 1323/1678
4 Likes
973, pick a year.
5 Likes
For those curios about their selection here:
1997 - 71, 121, 177 - The first super extension arms were revealed
1998 - 177 and 45 unleashed the first roller claws on FRC
1999 - Weird game, to hard to say
2000 - 25 - Their black ball steal
2001 - 177 & 71
2002 - 71 with 60 a close second
2003 - 111 Owned the ramp
2004 - 45, I wish high def video of this existed
2005 - 217/229 co-designed about as good as could have for the game
2006 - 25 & the Niagara Triplets (Primarily 1114)
2007 - 148 & 190, the best pure tuber and the best ramp
2008 - 1114, simpler more robust solution to scoring than everyone else had
2009 - 67, maybe their best robot
2010 - 67, hang after time expired was clutch
2011 - 177 literally nothing on this robot could have been improved under the rules at that time.
2012 - 118, Other have already talked about it
2013 - This season has completely disappeared from my memory
2014 - 254 their solution was so much simpler than anyone else
2015-2019 - I was on sabbatical and don’t have any real opinions.
1 Like
going back to 2008 bc i only know that far back
2008: 233, 148
2009: 254, 330
2010: 148, 1114
2011: 254, 1717
2012: 1717, 330, 118
2013: 1678, 33, 1538, 971, 987
2014: 254, 1114, 1323, 118
2015: 1678, 148, 1114, 2826
2016: 254, 2056, 1678, 330
2017: 971, 125, 148
2018: 118, 4481, 4613, 2910
2019: 3647, 4414, 4481, 973
2 Likes
2008 - 330, 1114 (statistically the most dominant robot of all time)
2009 - N/A
2010 - 86
2011 - 233, 177
2012 - 1717, 1717, 1717, 118, and 1717
2013 - 469
2014 - 118, 971
2015 - 2826, 971
2016 - 971
2017 - 971 (the counter-rotating dye rotor), 125 (scale prototypes)
2018 - 148, 4613 (just a lil’ guy!)
2019 - 2910, 330
8 Likes
This is giving me the feeling that you didn’t like the 2009 game
3 Likes
Some people like to forget certain years, for various reasons.
2 Likes