[Joel Glidden]

I think going for the bar early is going to be a bad idea for most teams that hang. From the pictures I have seen so far, very few teams appear to have made a locking mechanism to prevent them from being removed from the bar, or as I like to say, delivered to gravity's ever loving embrace.

On the QnA board, FIRST has stated that it is legal to de-hang opponent robots. This gets sticky though, as we all know that intentional damage is not permitted. The crux is that this will be a judgment call on the part of the referee.

On the one hand, I did not de-hang your robot to damage it. I did it to win the match. It was your responsibility to design your robot in such a way that it could not be dislodged from the bar, or that it could survive falling from the bar.

On the other hand, it may be my responsibility to design a robot that could safely deliver your robot to the ground after disengaging it from the bar, if I were planning to engage in such tactics.

If I had to make the call I would go with the first case. The second one doesn't pass the extension test. For example, extend this concept to pushing matches. Am I responsible for ensuring that no damage is done to your robot if I decide to push it away from my ball corral, or are you responsible for building a robot that is robust enough to take the punishment?

If you ask me, hanging early = broken robots for teams that don't lock on to the bar.