[Nitroxextreme]

When looking at many of the designs....at least the pitcher style ones. I found that it was difficult (if not impossible) to shield them completely without having them set back within a box.

Most of the wheel is begin used by the robot and I know that a team will not completely redesign so they use "less" wheel.

Simply put....you cant shield the pieces of the wheel you are using, unless the whole robot is a big box with holes cut for the ball the shoot out of. The holes would have to be covered with some sort of flexible protection.

I'm going way out there with this....then you would then have to increase wheel speed to account for friction with protection and therefore increasing the safety issue. While completely abiding to the FIRST rules.