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Originally Posted by Ricky Q.
During the driver's meeting on Thursday, Paul George, the Head Ref, explained to teams that if this happened and presented a safety issue that the offending team would be warned, then disabled if it happened again, then possibly DQ'd. Never did he say a penalty would be issued for this offense, if he had then perhaps it would be acceptable to ask why one was not given. But he did not, so that is why one was not given.
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Seriously, it would have been nice for all team members and the crowd in attendance to know that. You can't honestly expect those drive team kids to communicate that info to everyone on their team - they're already under enough pressure to focus on the game at hand as it is. We talk about wasting bandwidth and posting needless stuff on these forums - all such debate on this topic is needless stuff and would have been eliminated if one simple 30-second announcement was made to everyone in attendance at Boilermaker.
In my opinion, the safety and game-transforming factors involved with robot arms swinging or falling outside the sidelines and tetras dangling over the player station make these issues far too important to leave the associated scoring and penalty decisions in the hands of the individual referee crews. FIRST has taken the initiative to place an even greater emphasis on safety this year, and it seems counter to that initiative if they leave this major safety decision up to each of the regional volunteer staffs. I've got to hope and assume FIRST understands this and is working on a standardized ruling that will be applied across the board and
communicated to everyone. But since they have yet to release such a ruling, the severity of the penalties for robots who get a little crazy with their arms can still be debated....
I think a simple warning for placing someone's health and safety at risk is a little too lenient. If I remember correctly, a 10-point penalty was levied against any team last year that dangled a cushy air-filled ball even a little bit over the protective lexan of the player's station. So completely violating that space with a very hard object and striking other players nets only a warning? Oy.
The simplest, safest, and most logical solution to all of this would be to add more protective guarding above the player stations, as Kyle from 365 suggested in another thread. However, the $$$$ and logistics involved with that are probably too great an obstacle to overcome at this point in the season, so.....
A standard set of penalties should be put in place, but FIRST will still have to rely on the fair judgment of the referees to call the penalties when they are warranted. A proposal:
1. The "WARNING" will not come during a match; instead, it will come at the beginning of every competition day when the head ref
communicates this rule to everyone in attendance and tells drivers NOT TO DO IT. EVER. Wouldn't that be simple? The refs then would not have to ever keep track of which teams had been warned and which hadn't, making their jobs easier. You're welcome.
2. Much like last year, a 10-point penalty will be levied each time a robot's arm OBVIOUSLY breaks the vertical plane of the operator's station with a tetra. Keep the arms low around the home goals. If the stacks are high there (and they tend not to be), be extra careful. The refs in each player station area should be shouting out each infraction to drive teams as they occur.
3. Any time a robot arm
holding a tetra (or tetras) violates the space above a player station to the point where there is an
obvious and sustained risk of tetras falling and causing injury to humans or damage to team controls for at least two seconds or more, and the robot operator refuses to comply with referee instructions to back off, in addition to receiving a 10-point penalty, that team will be ordered to back off,
out of the opponent's home zone, if applicable, and remove the safety hazard, at which point, it will be disabled for the rest of the match. Failure to comply with this command in a standard amount of time (10 seconds) will result in a DQ. The defensive bots in the area will be instructed by the refs that the offensive team will be disabled, and they should not impede the removal of the offensive team's arm from the area above the player's station.
4. Teams playing defense in the areas around the player stations will be cautioned not to create the dangerous situation described above by actively using their arms to push the offensive robot's arm or tetra(s) into a dangerous position. Failure to comply will result in the defensive team receiving the penalties for whatever infractions were committed by the offensive team's arm. It should be blatantly obvious that the defensive team is ACTIVELY pushing high here - teams who raise their arms vertically to PASSIVELY block an offensive advance should not be penalized - in this case, the offensive team should then recieve the penalties for any infractions that occur.
5. If a defensive robot is playing legal defense by pushing low AND not getting underneath an offensive robot, they will NOT be penalized for the offensive robot's inability to control its arm during this contact. The offensive team must either retract its arm or risk receiving the penalties described above.
6. Robot disablement for safety infractions which occur along the sidelines will proceed as currently called. There will be no point penalties for dangerous situations, but the refs have the power to disable a bot at their discretion. I think falling onto the scorer's table falls into this category.
If a defensive bot pushing high causes such a dangerous situation to occur along the sidelines, they will be disabled too. Legal, low pushing will not result in disablement of the defensive robot, if it is obvious they aren't continuing to drive their robot under the CG-challenged offensive bot if it begins to destablilize and tip over. Watch out, wedges and low riders. Do not exacerbate an unsafe situation.
7. If a robot's arm or a tetra the robot is carrying ever strikes an operator, human player, coach, ref, field volunteer, or Grandma Baker sitting in the stands, a DQ will immediately be levied against the team whose robot was at fault, based upon the rules outlined above. This is simply unexcusable and must be discouraged with the most severe penalty possible.
It is obvious that at some regionals, robot drivers with tall arms did not feel they needed to exercise the restraint, caution, and control required when entering an area where human safety is an issue, primarily because the penalties weren't severe or as swift enough to worry about. FIRST must be clear, firm, and concise (much more concise that I was, anyway) in communicating and enforcing the penalties related to this issue.
One final thing - a way to eliminate half the potential for penalties is to simply not call any penalties on drivers and teams who are foolish enough to dangle tetras over their
own player stations when trying to cap, since their safety is already placed directly in their hands. I don't know how much their alliance partners would like for them to dangle/drop tetras over/onto them during a match, but I'm sure GP would prevail and a lot of interesting discussion would settle any differences following the conclusion of the match....