[Kit Gerhart]

Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux

Safety should come before gameplay, no questions asked. If a robot breaks the plane and poses an immediate threat to the operators, that robot needs to be shut down immediately. If a robot is pushing that robot to cause the situation, both robots need to be shut down. A warning isn't harsh enough - sure you could issue a warning, but someone might be seriously hurt by then. If this isn't changed by some of the upcoming regionals and the national competition, I just have a really bad feeling that someone is going to get seriously hurt all because the robot was not shut down when it broke the plane of the player station.

Unfortunately, there is not an easy fix for this problem. The real fix would be for the Lexan player station windows to be about 4 feet taller, but I suspect it is too late, and would be too expensive to make that change at this point.

Shutting down robots with arms dangling tetras over player stations would, in many or most cases, be more dangerous than letting them continue to try to get back over on the playing field side. Most robot arms will back drive and fall if disabled, and some "active grabbers" would drop, rather than hold tetras.

It seems to me that a consistently applied point penalty would be the best solution. The 30 point loading zone penalty makes drivers very careful to avoid opponents' robots in their loading zone. A major point penalty for going over the player stations would have a similar effect IMHO.