Re: Breaking the plane
 

It's a fine line, but an important distinction. If there is a safety concern, the robot (and probably any robot that was involved in creating the safety concern, e.g. the opponent who pushes the scoring robot into an unsafe position) should be disabled. However, breaking the plane does not automatically constitute a safety concern (especially in the case where it is above the auto-load side home goal, away from everyone).

I hope that this is called consistently and clearly, and that all safety concerns result in disablement - but only true safety concerns.

Re: Breaking the plane
 

I can understand why this would cause one to be not content with the ruling that was made. However, the one thing that comes to my mind is that safety is an incredibly important concern... more important than making sure that every call was called correctly. While making sure that things are fair is a priority, if I were a referee I would rather air on the side of caution and possibly disable a robot when it might not have been a real threat to safety - instead of letting it go and possible having people get hurt. I think that if there is any question about whether or not a robot might be posing danger to any of the people behind the driver's station or to the field attendants - that robot should be disabled - because I would rather have a dissapointed alliance than possible injuries to the people in the vicinity of the field.

I know that it is hard to get over the dissapointment of what may feel like an unjustified call, but if anyone felt that the robot was presenting danger, I think it is better that the robot was disabled. If the situation were slightly different, and the robot actually WAS presenting real danger, and the refs did not disable the robot because it might not have actually been dangerous... the end result would be injuries - a far worse problem than a team who is upset because of disablement.

In my opinion... it is better to be safe than sorry!

-- Jaine