[nighterfighter]

Originally Posted by cgmv123

It is used to keep robots from falling on students. A staff member lets the rope out as you lower the robot by hand. If you somehow drop the robot, the staff member stops letting the rope out, and your robot is stopped before it can fall more than a few inches and significantly hurt people, the field, other robots or itself. One of FIRST's rules is that event staff touches teams' robots as little as possible, so they can't be held responsible as little if something gets broken.

Right, I wasn't very clear.

I meant why not just use the belay system entirely, have the team attach the belay ropes and then the staff member gently lets it down, instead of having to require the students to manhandle it down.