[Greg Needel]

I believe that the robots should get the bonus. Basically the way that it has always been in my mind as both a team member and referee is that bonuses are given after robots come to a stop and/or in the situation of a slow moving bot after about 15 seconds. This came into play frequently in 2004 when teams would winch themselves up and start to fall after the match is over. All of those were call with the intent that if it wouldn't touch the ground in 30 seconds then it was up. Alot of the time things are scored when the referees get over and look at the robots. Since there is not time in the day to wait for every slow after clock bot lifter to finish I would assess the bonus based on what I saw when I went over to measure the first time. In this situation I would give 30 points in bonus, based on both robots being above the 4" mark when inspected.



*semi-off topic, I remember a situation in 2004 where a team used a pneumatic lifter to get up on the bar. The mechanism was triggered before the buzzer but there was another bot above that one which was holding it down to the platform. When we went over to inspect the hanging robots it was initially observed that the robot was not off the ground but a referee bumped the robot pinning it to the ground and that pinned bot hung. It was decided that even though the robot hung in the end that the team not get the 50 points because at the time we looked at the bot it was not off the ground, I think the same call applies to this YMTC.