[Jon Stratis]

The potential bad affects of a leak in a hydronic line are really what make it unsafe for FIRST robots. Water and electricity are a bad combination for a robot! Further, a leak would most likely result in "damage" to the field, forcing other matches to play through a puddle/soaked carpet. Regardless of the precautions you might take to prevent leaks, we all know anything can happen with these robots. I've seen hits bend structural frame material before, and arms accidentally get stuck inside another robot causing all sorts of damage to wiring and pneumatic tubing. If the Auto industry can't design a car that doesn't run a risk of leaking brake fluid (granted, they have gotten much better and it's not very common... But it does still happen), I doubt you can design a robot without that same risk!

In a similar way, consider this year's game. With climbing, we anticipated that many teams would want to be able to adjust their center of gravity or weight. A "clever" way to do that would be with a reservoir of sand or bb's or something similar. It seems great, but there's a huge concern for spillage. What happens when the robot takes a hit and bb's go rolling around the field? Field reset would be cleaning them up all weekend! Fortunately, I don't think we saw much of this...