In my opinion, if there is any doubt into whether there was any ill intention in "pushy" situations, the referees should penalize them. The refs' jobs/volunteer duties are to keep the FIRST competition friendly and graciously professional. I agree with the previous thread that ramming is illegal. FIRST components are not designed to withstand kinetic energies put on them.
If a robot is moving along and another robot puts its arm in the way and it gets knocked over, that is unintentional (no or low penalties).
If a robot backs up 10 feet and then cries "Charge!!", that is "ramming" and should have a high penalty, depending on the damage that it does. (ie tip over = yellow card. disable (electronic damage) = instant dq). If a robot is moving along and it gets some electrical damage, that is their fault, but if it gets charged, that isn't fair.
In addition, it should be illegal for a robot to lead with a "spear". while I don't doubt that team A had no intention of shutting off (or causing severe electrical damge to) team B, it definitely could have happened. If the claw had opened, and it had landed in the electronics, even if they tried to let go, it would have undoubtedly stripped team B's electronics. I would have felt terrible for team B if their robot got disabled that way and they had to miss out on being IRI champions.
But the Refs at IRI were great in that respect. They called penalties if they had the slightest doubt, which is what should be done. Hats off to them.
