[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by EricH

2006's competitions, as I recall. Back then, it was in the Manual, or at least somewhere where it could be seen by teams with minimal effort. Lots of robots had to add guards that year...

My recollection was that it was largely based on a suggestion implemented uniformly through the lead robot inspectors. The concern had been expressed that 2006's shooters could cause all sorts of injury, and the LRIs discussed this at length. OSHA standards were discussed, because they establish human-machine safety practices used in United States industry. (Personally, I think it was the wrong decision to conflate the human-machine contact standards used in industry with FRC robots, mainly because of the limited circumstances under which such contact can take place. It was also wrong to conflate the exploding-shooter case with the human-machine contact case. Even though the solution to both is often to install guards, it does not follow that you must install guards to protect against one when the other is present.)

Based on LRI feedback and discussions at FIRST, the standard provided by the then-Chief-Inspector was:

Originally Posted by Russ Beavis

Shooter Shield metric - an easy metric to employ - poke around with a 3/4" dowel. You should not be able to contact any rotating or thrusting mechanisms (except when entering from the shooter "outlet").

The authority for this standard was based on those designs being deemed unsafe per <S01>:

Originally Posted by 2006's <S01>

<S01> If at any time a ROBOT’s operation or design is deemed unsafe by the head referee, it will receive a 10- point penalty and be disabled for the remainder of the match. If the safety violation is due to the ROBOT design, the head referee has the option to not allow the ROBOT back onto the field unless the design has been corrected. An example of unsafe operation is repeatedly throwing balls off the field at audience members, media personnel, judges, referees, etc. An example of an unsafe design is a shooter mechanism that has a large mass that is stopped abruptly at the end of travel and is at risk of breaking off the ROBOT and becoming a projectile.

That's an example of a good process for establishing consistency between events through rule-compliant consensus standards—even if perversely, that standard had flaws and was not always enforced consistently.

Originally Posted by Brandon_L

I feel like a rule like this, upfront in the beginning of the season and in the manual, would clear up 99% of problems teams are having.

The 2006 standard was a bit deficient in this respect, because the inspectors' teleconferences took place late in the build season and during the competition season. Teams were not initially advised that the LRIs were planning to use this interpretation across the board, and when confronted with it at events, teams did not always react well (understandably). This led to problems of equity, which events ended up resolving differently.

Also, there were some possible issues with the way FIRST delegated the authority to deem a robot unsafe—was that a head referee responsibility that should have been outside the purview of LRIs, or did the references to safety in the robot rules provide them sufficient authority? (FIRST also has internal procedures for delegating authority among competition officials, entirely apart from the rules. For unfathomable reasons, they don't publish these openly most years.)