[Pat Major]

Why do loading stations exist? To protect the human players and the referees.

Are the referees better protected if they are trying to look under the 28 X 38 perimeter of a robot to see if a wheel that may be barely visible is on the loading station triangle? What might the robots arm be doing while the ref is crouching down to look? If a robot has a cover that the referee can not see through and the cover is an inch or two off the playing field, and the robots wheels are set in a couple of inches from the edge of the robot, how could the ref know if the robot was on. There may be no way to tell if a robot is in, if the robots cover is a quarter of an inch off the ground. Andy and Paul might have to teach the referees how to do the “belly checks” that were so well done at the IRI competition. For the safety of the refs I think that the rule should be amended to read “the loading zone is a 3 dimensional area defined by the edges of the hdpe triangle” I think breaking the plan is much safer and also much easier to judge. If the rule is not changed it will just be zip tie city, and a lot of robots with skirts.

As for baseball players they do not have a 28 X 38 protective cover over their feet to obstruct the view of the base from umpire.

Speaking of baseball how about this curve ball, why not have the referees signal by raising an arm that a robot is in the loading station and it is safe for the team to remove a tetra. That way the team can keep trying to position themselves in the zone until the referee signals. No arguments over whether you were in or not, no red flags, you may not touch the tetra until his hand is raised. Assumes that we have a referee at each of the four referee loading stations