Quote:
Originally Posted by Travis Covington
This sounds wrong. I imagine if there was an exclusive reason to inspect robots it would be for safety.
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I've got to agree. If a team wants to cheat in a competition for high school students and beat me, they could spend extra time working on their robot with almost no chance at getting caught. I'm not saying we should do everything based on the honor system (teams make honest mistakes sometimes), but having lots of these overkill rules leads to people making bad decisions, and lots of teams getting red cards.
I hate the atmosphere that we've had this year, where students and mentors honestly believe that inspectors and head refs are trying their hardest to give penalties and call teams out on subjective judgement calls, nonexistent rules, and where they "just can't remember what rule it is, but you broke it" as often as possible. This year, I've seen it all, from inspectors telling rookie teams (at the championship) misinformation, even after I walked up to the inspector, showed him the rule, and he agreed I was right.
With my experiences this year, it seems like inspectors/refs would much rather give out a bunch of red cards and prohibit things rather than to allow one or two robots on the field that may have charged their air tanks by shorting out the pressure switch for a few seconds or from a shop compressor.
I'll always do my best to make sure my team follows all the rules, but I wouldn't be too upset if my opponent fills his air tanks with a shop compressor. I'd be a lot less upset than if anybody got an incorrect red card/DQ.