[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by rich2202

Assuming when you enter the field with the Robot you proceed directly to your placement point, and that the placement point is not blocked by a leaving robot: It starts when you in the general area of the placement point.

Assuming the field reset people are inhibiting your ability to setup the robot, an allowance will be made.

60 seconds is a guide, not a requirement. Hence, a regular watch is sufficient. If you are at your placement point at 3:35:00 pm, then your 60 seconds is up at 3:36:00 pm.

Each robot has its own 60 second period. If your team unnecessarily delays entering the field (standing around yacking and not entering the field when they are first able to) then that delay will count against your 60 seconds.

That said: the 60 second rule gets progressively more strict as the tournament proceeds. Numerous teams were warned at the beginning of qualification matches when they were taking too long. By the time we got to the elimination matches, we didn't have a problem with setup.

If we were having a problem, here is what I would do: I would identify the problem teams, and make it clear to them when the 60 seconds starts (stand there and say your 60 seconds starts now). I would warn them at 50 seconds, and again at 60 seconds. I would then give them 15 seconds to clear the field. At that point, they would have earned the disabled. Whether they are disabled or not would depend upon whether they are delaying the start, or if other things are going on (field connection problems with another bot, another bot still in their 60 seconds, etc.).

You seem to have a much more rigid and strict interpretation of the rule than several of the other refs on this thread. Which, I believe, is Dr. Joe's whole point. G10 as written is vague, so refs have to make up their own definitions of what a violation is. It's not a good state of affairs to have that level of penalty hinge on such a vague definition.