intangelment......
 

hey,
will it brake the rule if you launch a soccer ball across the field with a tether so you can be on your home zone... will this be against the rule... Please help the rule don't explain it that well.... even if it is at the last second.... PLEASE HELP ME
BOBBY....team 284

This is just my opinion...

If it poses a risk of entanglment, even if you launch it at the last second, the judges probably won't allow it.

Re: intangelment......
 

Time does not matter, so if your "tether" poses a risk of entanglement, it will be disallowed. Also, you are not allowed to use the ball in the kit as part of your robot(too easy to confuse it with an actual game ball - Rule K1 Update in Update #1), so you would have to use one of the balls already on the field, which means, since it's not an actual part of your robot, the ball touching would not count.

ENtanglement
 

Additionally, I believe there was a rule that said the only thing that may be "launched" from a robot is a ball.

On a related note....

I think that there are going to be a lot of upset teams at their first regionals. It seems like there are a lot of ideas out there that violate tether rules and are still being put into production by teams. Honestly, I hope it is enforced so I don't feel like I've wasted my time designing a system that can't get a robot caught in it (not that we'd ever use something like that.... ;)), but we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

~Tom Fairchild~, who's wondering what other people think about the entanglement rule.

P.S. Nate's completely right. Time has no issue with it, its wether a robot could get caught in it.

I completely agree with you on the intanglement issue. Teams shouldn't be depending upon this idea to work with the rules. Sure the idea works theoretically, but there is too great of a risk being taken by using the time, weight and space to build it and being disapointed. Even if 'tether-zone' extension is allowed, it shouldn't be too difficult to counter it.

A goofy idea
 

*IDEA*

You could make a rope with magnets, and have the negative sides sticking out so when a robot came near it it would move the other way?

Might sound funny or hard to do, but theoretically it could happen. ;)

Re: A goofy idea
 

Uhhh... that could only work if the robot was made completely out of positive sided magnets. Both poles are still attracted to metal.

~Tom Fairchild~