[Brian Beatty]

I would like to take a different approach to this whole argument. First off, 1114's arm was not the first arm to be tore off this year. Our team's( 71 ) arm was tore off in MWR during eliminations( no call )--and there was much rejoicing. Did we like it? No. But we accepted it as part of the game. Of course, we took the opportunity to reinforce the broken area.

The question being asked right now is the wrong question. We should not ask,"Did 48 try to purposely break 1114's arm and did they intentionally pin for more than 10 seconds?" but we should ask, "How much defense should we allow in FIRST and under what conditions?". FIRST has run the whole gambit of human emotion from 2001 with no defense to 2002 and 2003, which was all out war. A game like 2001, which we at Team Hammond liked a lot, was chastised as "too boring", or "Darn--my failed offensive design couldn't be morphed into a beater to be competitive". After 2003, the game of denial, in which wonderful machines like 67 were never allowed to do their thing, FIRST started to change the rules to allow "vigorous intereaction", but protect offensive machines from annihiliation. The rules have been tightened as we went to no tipping, no wedge bots, no ramming,no high hitting, to the yellow/red card system, but still allow "vigorous interaction". As long as we allow "vigorous interaction", we will be subject to human interpretation. And as long as this human element remains, these discussions will continue.

In conclusion, I feel for 1114's tough break, but if a bad call/no call was made, that's the game. The only way to end these human element disputes is the "nuclear option" --no defense.

Sincerely,

Brian Beatty