[Mark Garver]

Q: We designed and built a robot that would tip from 38x28 to 38x60. The “new” base and drive train is “blatantly obvious that our robot is in the LZ” and ”has a load bearing surface in contact with the HDPE”. Is our robot in the LZ?

Revised answer 4/11/2005: If we understand your question correctly, yes. Robots that "flop" must declare a 28" x 38" section of their robot to be the "robot base." The declared section must be a portion of a 60" long surface of the robot that was nominally vertical prior to the start of the match. This is the section that the referees will always use to determine if your robot is in the loading zone.

Original answer: If we understand your question correctly, yes. Robots that "flop" basically must declare a 28" x 38" of their robot to be the "robot base." This is the section that the referees will always use to determine if your robot is in the loading zone.

Well I am surprised that there hasn't been more discuss on this topic; this is a pretty big change in rulings over all of the regional competitions this season. Teams that had relied on whiskers now could possible need to rebuild their entire arm in order to reach the loading stations. This to me just doesn't sound at all right. Teams built robotics based on the rules they were given and now they may need to rebuild entire assemblies in the pits in order to compete at the Championship event. I believe that FIRST should have taken care of this way back in the beginning of the competition season as soon as it was observed, so that teams could possible take care of this problem during the "Fix-It" window. Just my two cents.