Quote:
Originally Posted by Emphimisey
The ones in Sydney were Balsa wood, with 15 mm deep wood screws. 359 broke handles as well but are yet to do so in Hawaii.
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This makes a little bit more sense. After spending a weekend at a regional, I found it hard to believe that they could be broken without doing something unreasonable. The fact they were made of balsa wood makes a huge difference.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Emphimisey
We were reminded multiple times however that is within the terms of use.
It was not egregious nor strategic.
In my opinion it is a poorly designed field element, as have a hard metal stop, stop something traveling at speed is not the wisest.
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It appears to me that this was a special case based on the strange choice of materials for the field in Austrailia. I imagine if the field was constructed to spec, and you were still breaking handles then officials would have a different take.
Balsa wood handles can certainly break under what most would consider reasonable force. That is not the case with the construction we saw in VA, and I imagine the other posters in this thread saw. Repeated damage to the field is specifically called out in the rules, while the rules address how it is handles when the damage is caused by a robot, I would not see any issue with the rule being applied to the entire team.
There is nothing wrong with a hard stop for something travelling at speed, Damage can be prevented through a combination of material selection, and smart use. Material selection was clearly an issue in Australia, use can and should be coached, no need to try to accelerate the door through the hard stop.