[DougHogg]

Originally Posted by AmyPrib

Everyone keeps talking about safety being the concern.
In re-reading Gordon's post, I don't think he mentioned they made the call due to safety.

If you go to page one of this thread and choose "Find" from the "Edit" menu and type "safe", you'll find that "safety" is mentioned three times and that Gordon did mention it in his post, and others who were involved in helping to resolve the matter mentioned "safety" as well. (Use "Find again" to see the second and third instances.)

As to safety being an disqualification matter, as I said in the Silicon Valley Regional thread, I imagine that the safety issue resolved before the referees disabled any of the robots involved. It seems to me that a 30 point penalty is just one step below being disabled, and I think that is as it should be. Disabling a robot should be a last resort, and I don't think that referees should be told that they have to disable a robot or do nothing in a safety situation. If our team does something that causes the referees to have concern about safety, I expect to get a penalty if the situation is minor and quickly resolves. If the situation continues or is serious, I expect to be disabled.

In any case, I applaud your persistence in trying to eliminate any confusion on the rules as it would definitely help if everyone was on the same page.

I imagine the National Basketball League and other sporting events would have a lot of wrinkles to iron out if they had a new game every year. I don't know of any other group who would have the nerve to create a new game every year. Thank you FIRST for having the willingness to go where no other group dares to tread in the interests of helping today's youth and the world to a better future.

I'm afraid that there will always be holes and apparent contradictions in the rules in a competition that is recreated every year with many new rules and situations. Maybe it is time to have several very experienced senior referees available for telephone calls by a "hot line" during all our matches.

In any case, I hope everyone will keep safety as the highest priority during the rest of the season. I would hate to see human player interaction eliminated from the game. (Honestly, can you think of any other group that would dare to have robots getting playing objects from human players?)