[Dan Richardson]

R16 states that once the games starts a robot in its horizontal configuration can never be bigger than 80" More specifically all parts of your robot must fit within an 80" cylinder.

This is a pretty big rule once you think about it and do the math. If your robot is at maximum dimension ( 38x28 ) and you have your REQUIRED bumpers on, you can only reach a maximum of about 34" in front of your bot. All gripper designs that do not bring the ball inboard and reach around the entire ball would be illegal.

If you are planning to reach over the overpass while hurdling you better either start while underneath or not reach more than 3" past it. That includes your gripper.

Think about it, this rule is really quite limiting and if it's not reworded your gonna see a lot of people getting penalized for it.

I understand the intent, but if you have an arm that reaches in front of your bot basically at all, with a gripper that gets just beyond the radius of the ball then your very close to or already in violation of R16. Make sure you keep this in mind when designing your bots.

I think this will be one of the most broken rules this year and I really hope those that design within the rules aren't penalized for it by FIRST changing the rules late or refs not realizing how easy it is to break this rule and not calling it.