Thread: Is this legal
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Unread 23-02-2005, 20:18
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Tristan Lall Tristan Lall is offline
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Re: Is this legal

You know, that saw blade brings up a good point; even though something is mean-looking, it isn't necessarily illegal. (A standard saw blade, of course, would fail inspection, and even if by some circumstance it appeared on the field, the referee would immediately declare it unsafe and prohibit it.) If it (legally) strikes fear into the hearts of the opposition, so much the better: that is a good deterrent.

There is, however, no rule against wedges--<G25> stipulates that the strategy, and not the mechanism, is potentially illegal.

Regarding <G21>, and amateurrobotguy's comments:
<G21> A ROBOT cannot pin (inhibit the movement of another ROBOT while in contact with one or more field elements) for more than 10 seconds. If a ROBOT has been pinned for 10 seconds, the team with the pinning ROBOT will be told by the referee to release the pinned ROBOT and back away approximately 3 feet. Once the pinning ROBOT has backed off by 3 feet, it may again attempt to pin its opponent and, if successful, the 10 second count starts over. If a referee determines this rule to be violated, a 10-point penalty flag will be thrown for each violation.
I believe that "entrapment" and "blocking" are neologisms in the FIRST vocabulary--there are no such definitions in the rules. <G21> specifically requires contact with a field element for pinning; there exists no alternate case in which such contact does not exist, and therefore, there are no such penalties. However, the suggestion that "[t]he refs should watch the movements of a wedgebot or any other bot carefully to ensure fair play" is entirely reasonable--this is their responsibility.

Last edited by Tristan Lall : 23-02-2005 at 20:35.
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