[Tristan Lall]

I've got the same issue with <R04> as Richard; the much-vaunted common-sense approach suggests that we apply a reasonable interpretation of the rule, and yet, it requires us (as officials) to determine what "might push against another robot". If I were to take a literalist approach, it would be useless (encompassing far too much to be practical, e.g. the radii of the bumpers themselves); on the other hand, if I apply my judgement, it will inevitably be different from others' appraisal of the same design. Looking at my own team's robot, I can concieve of many possible opposing robots that might contact it at an angle greater than 10° from vertical. And yet, the robot is positively slab-sided, and can hardly be considered a wedging threat.

What is clear, however, is what's going to come of this, absent a clearly worded and well-thought-out clarification: different teams will interpret this rule differently, and all but the most blatant violations will be permitted to play, either on the grounds that they were allowed at another event (which, technically, isn't relevant unless the inspectors want it to be, since there is no rule or universally accepted practice for applying precedents), or on compassionate grounds, because it would be rather impractical to make them all attach extraneous vertical surfaces to every exposed aspect of their robot.