[Joe Johnson]

Safety of the participants and spectators is indeed very important, but I still don't get rule M11.

It does nothing to limit the amount energy sorted in a spring, it only limits the amount of energy stored at the beginning of the match and that to a level that is so low as to be silly.

Another example of how little energy they are allowing: 20 ft-lbs of energy will allow you to lift your robot 1/23rd of the way up the ramp (i.e. about 4 inches up the ramp or raising your robot's CG a little more than an inch off the carpeted surface).

There are an infinite number of ways to build a unsafe robot. They are all illegal. Limited spring energy to 20 ft-lbs at the beginning of the match does very little to increase the safety of FIRST robots (imho).

In fact, I believe that a case can be made that increasing the number of badly behaved robot arms will result in a higher chance of someone getting hurt at a robot competition (i.e. a decrease in safety).

The rule is a puzzlement...


Joe J.