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Originally Posted by Steve W
Stu, Ron was also the head ref at Detroit. He called the same way. Was it good, NO. There is NO penalty in the rules that is given for "breaking the plane". I fully agree that IF there is a safety issue deal with it by clearing the area and shutting down the robot. Once the safety issue has been taken care of allow the teams to resume playing. To shut down a robot is a major "penalty" for which there is no rule. They were getting silly with some refs concentrating on the tetra and the line more than the pushing and ramming that was going on. If they were 1/4" some were being called. This in anyones mind is not a safety issue.
Enforce the rules as written. Don't have refs make their own interpretations. Again shutting down a robot is a big penalty. Not shutting down the team pushing is even worse. FIRST needs to address this situation before it gets worse.
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If we grant that the head referee is ultimately responsible for determining whether an action is safe or unsafe, then he is acting according to <S01> by defining the limit of safe actions. By categorically stating that any robot which crosses the plane of the field barrier is unsafe, he is providing a simple guideline by which that determination can be made, on the fly, by an official who doesn't necessarily know how the robot operates, and may not be in a position to rapidly estimate the eventual outcome of the robot's motion.
<S01> If at any time the ROBOT operation is deemed unsafe, by the determination of the referees, the ROBOT will be disabled for the remainder of the match.
The only deviation from the rules as printed is the additional stipulation that the disabling take place "at the earliest safe opportunity", which addresses the danger of a mechanism releasing a tetra or moving into an unanticipated position when power is cut. This is an absolutely necessary precaution.
Now, if the referee wants to be a little more lenient, and even a little more realistic, he might say that crossing the plane is grounds for disablement, but that each situation will be evaluated on its own merits, and that trivial incursions into that space may be ignored. But I don't see this as anything but a judgment call on the referee's part, given the nature of <S01>--he must make an interpretation in order to enforce the rule as written.
If the referees are strictly concentrating on this plane, rather than on the rest of the field, I don't think they're doing their jobs correctly (unless extra referees have been assigned to this task). Perhaps the referees have decided to be more lenient with regard to robot interaction, and are simply ignoring the pushing and shoving?