My comments on shooters
 

I personally dont like the idea of a launching robot and I think it is unsafe. There were some issues at some 2006 regionals where balls were shot at the tech guys knocking over things. This was with small nerf balls. 8lb balls hurled with enough force to conciderably clear the 78" overpass could do worse. Some rambunctious members of my school have clearly proved that a seemingly lightly thrown trackball could injure a person no problem. Even with the victim expecting the blow. My convern is that if this is proven to be a saftey concern does any regional inspection team have the cajones to start disabling the ten plus shooting robots that will attend each competition. I think teams might get by just based upon sheer numbers of people the inspectors would have to DQ to declare this stratagy unsafe. Thoughts? Comments? Maybe I'm way off and bing a total idiot :)

Re: My comments on shooters
 

In my opinion, the GDC deemed launching robots safe enough to allow for their constrcution, and to alleviate some concerns in this manner, even released an entire update dedicated to shooter safety. While of course, arms are safer, the fact there are no rules explicity prohibiting launching the balls make it clear that unless done extremley carelessly, the GDC believes that shooting robots can be safe. Add to that the wall around the playing field, and I don't think it will be as dangerous are you describe it to be.

Disclaimer: I am not, and I have not spoken with any member of the GDC on this issue. I'm just providing my interpretation of the matter.

Re: My comments on shooters
 

It's a very valid point. However, rather than disable a very larger percentage of the playing field, it seems that FIRST would be more likely to put a very large penalty in place if a ball is fired out of the field.

FIRST doesn't seem like the type of competition where they would willingly and knowingly screw over a large group of teams without a second thought.

Re: My comments on shooters
 

There is definitely a safety issue, yes. Will the inspectors/refs DQ teams due to safety? Possibly. Remember, it's not the inspector's job to issue a DQ, it's the ref's. The inspector makes sure the robot is safe and legal, and can keep a robot from competing if there is a safety issue.

I think that, provided the launching only goes over the overpass, there should be no issue. If it starts going over field side "walls", then there would be an big issue.

Re: My comments on shooters
 

We'll have to see how it turns out this year. But I definitely thought there were some speed issues for the launchers in 06. I also thought there was a little too much ramming that year too.

Re: My comments on shooters
 

I predict that there will be trackball inflicted damages. Launching Bots will be a cause of this yes. However, not all teams with launchers are going to cause damage, so it is unfair to generalize that all of them are unsafe. I just hope that they don't inflict to much damage...

Re: My comments on shooters
 

This is exactly my point. Because so many teams went with this approach FIRST might sacrafice a decision they would make normally due to not wanting to DQ a lot of teams.

Re: My comments on shooters
 

From the point made here, perhaps with all the prediction of penalties during week 1 regionals, an update will come out with some concerns and possible game rule changes to address potential unsafe and ungracious play that the original rules have not addressed.
For example, in 2006, shooter speeds had a maximum "speed limit" placed. Maybe they may have teams adjust shooter speed mechanisms that are potentially dangerous. The difference being in 2006, the rule came out before regional action, while rule(s) changes may occur after week 1 regionals are played out.
Personally, I hope nothing bad really happens, very few penalties occur, and no one gets frustrated and has a grand old time!

Re: My comments on shooters
 

Personally, I think some shooting robots will have an advantage. I have no idea what inspectors have in their mind as a "safe shooter," but I guess we will find that out as the regionals roll by. As said above, a whole update was released on just shooters; I am sure FIRST/GDC has thought this out throughly before permitting shooting robots. The only thing you need to worry about is your robot and how it is going to react when there is a 8 lbs 40" in diameter ball flying at your machine.

Re: My comments on shooters
 

It's obvious that the GDC has considered this-see the Team Update with the lengthy list of considerations on how to treat launchers like loaded cannons with lit fuses. I think that that update provides a perfect justification for them to impose a penalty on any safety violations and DQ after warnings, and I doubt they'll do anything else. However, I think that if all those rules are followed, there is nothing that makes all "shooters" inherently unsafe.

Re: My comments on shooters
 

The perception of danger can be a uniquely personal thing. I don't mean to dispute your perception of a flying trackball as being something that presents a potential hazard, and hope that your team members who were injured by the flying trackball have since recovered with no permanent harm. I must, however, suggest that in relation to the myriad other hazards present at an FRC event, that the injury potential of robot-launched trackballs pales in comparison.

Consider the hazards involved in:

Driving to the event (likely the most dangerous part of the event, although hardly perceived as such)
Using cutting and boring tools such as knives, drills and saws.
Slipping on a wet floor, or falling down the stairs of the stadium.
Lifting and carrying heavy objects, some possibly with unintentionally sharp edges.
150lb high velocity metal machines that can clean you out at the ankle if you get in their way
Eating at a variety of cheap restaurants (I suspect food poisoning will send more FRC competitors to hospital than trackballs will this year)
Competitors rolling, bouncing, sitting and surfing on trackballs
etc. etc.

The point is not to suggest that lauchers do not present some additional risk, but rather that the risk can be mitigated to a point where it is managable. Life is not about avoiding risk, but managing it.

Jason

Re: My comments on shooters
 

You show a good point. I dont mean to suggest that everything should be bubble wrapped, I am more worried about the annoyances and game delays of having the Dj station getting bombarded by trackballs for example then the very off chance any1 actually gets injured by a ball. I just think its out of character for FIRST to allow this stratagy even to endorse it.

Re: My comments on shooters
 

My dad can vouch for the cheap restaurants, he got food poisoning for about two weeks at Silicon Valley.

As for the trackballs, Woody brings up a good point that they can be dangerous, but I dont see many trackballs clearing the driver's station wall, due to a combination of physical limitations and driver sensibility. No one wants to be known as the team that took out the opposing drive team with a trackball.

Re: My comments on shooters
 

Lately I've been giving this a lot of thought... we have a simple arm bot with a forklift that without a traffic jam, can hurdle about 3 times a match. But another useful (maybe not wise) strategy is to park our robot with it's forklift up in front of the opponent's overpass. As long as we don't impede a robot - it seems perfectly legal to block a "shooter's" ball launch. The down side is the force with which the ball may hit our robot may not be healthy for our robot. But let's just say we try this, maybe in the elim's and the opponents ball hits our forklift section and pops (this happen just this way at a scrimmage already). Now the opponent is left with just one ball. Is the ball popping intentional? It's not like we built daggers on our forklift, but the force the ball hits with makes it very vunerable to an exposed screw or bolt (which is how a ball popped on us at the scrimmage).

Re: My comments on shooters
 

In a thread a few weeks back, Dave Lavery acknowledged that it's pretty likely that the scoring table will be wiped out by a trackball at least once this season, and if I know anything about Dave, I'd say he's secretly looking forward to it. FIRST has known about this from day one, which is why the guardrails are higher than in years past. There are some inherent hazards, but like you said, you can't bubble-wrap everything. It's gonna be a fun season... I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of very creative bots (and maybe a few panicking FTAs).