Quote:
Originally Posted by J Flex 188
Lastly, no amount of rough play justifies being a piece of machinery as significant and as large as an arm being torn off.
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The force and aggression 48 exerted was extremely great to cause the joint break and rack shift. I feel the rack movement is a combination of 1114's robust (yes, I said robust) design and a "greasier" rack that seemed increasingly easier to move as the regional weeks moved on. This is the action and accompanying sound that sickened me when I first saw it happen. After watching the video in more detail, however, 1114's action of backing up following the break did a substantial amount of the separating and final amputation. It appears once they realized their arm was broken, they did what was necessary to extract themselves from the ringer to go continue to be productive on the other side of the field. I would expect nothing less from such fierce competitors. I think the act of 1114 helping to sever their own arm is important to note, considering everyone is attaching the "vicious" appearance of the entire process solely to 48's robot.
Also, a few other observations having studied the video, purely from the DRIVER'S point of view.
- The middle spider was almost full at the time this happened, so visibility was limited, especially for a kid who's really not that tall.
- If you look, the difference in position between the "I have a ringer and I want to score on the middle spider" arm position and the "I'm being pushed into the middle spider by a defender" arm position isn't all that significant, and much of the arm is obscured by ringers already scored at the height of the middle spider level.
- The announcer didn't indicate he was aware of the broken arm until 1114 started ripping away from the part still attached to the spider leg. His attention may have been diverted elsewhere for a few moments, but his vantagepoint was unquestionably better than our driver's. If he didn't notice this until later, is it out of the question to believe our driver couldn't tell the arm was broken?
- Finally, I can never really tell if the blue ringer was ever officially scored per the rules. At the end, when 1114's arm was dangling off of it, the ringer was perched on top of the "stinger". Does this count as being scored? I really don't know - we aren't in the business of scoring ringers (save for an attempt to score a keeper in auton on Thursday).