Quote:
Originally Posted by jgannon
This was doable with last year's field control software... it was employed a few times when spider feet were knocked off the rack mid-match.
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Last year at Philly, they stopped a match because a robot was smoking. It must have been motor smoke not the dreaded magic smoke (from an electrical fire)
, because it stopped shorty after the bots were disabled.
Then suddenly, they quickly announced something like "OK, we are starting up again, 3, 2, 1, GO!!!!!" and quickly resumed the match. Everyone, including the drivers, seemed surprised. The match finished without any further problems. That's how I remember the match. If anyone, like George (play-by-play) or Wayne (MC), has any insight into exactly what happened then please add it because it is an interesting case.
This incident is similar to the proposed caution flag idea, allowing a timeout for a malfunctioning and potentially unsafe robot. The robot was not moved during the timeout, simply allowed to cool down. It would be possible for a team to remove their tipped robot during a similar timeout. The caution flags could make the process less confusing than that incident. In the interest of time and consistency, I think this timeout should only be used in the case where:
(1) the tipped bot is violating the 80" rule (ref signaled the penalty)
AND
(2) the team has hit the E-STOP (indicating they are not trying to right themselves)