[EricH]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

There's a practical problem with that, though: you can't directly get a red card for egregious behaviour, only a yellow card (according to <T05>), unless the red card results from two yellow cards in two separate matches (due to <T07>). Also, <T09> tells us that red cards can be recieved directly, for disqualifications that don't result from yellow cards—but then the grounds for disqualification need to be something else. That brings us back to the subject of the thread: there doesn't seem to be a sanction with immediate punitive results, unless the behaviour is repeated in more than one match (in which case another yellow card will quickly deal with the offender).

While the referees will obviously hand out a yellow card every time this happens, that does give a team a theoretical opportunity to use this strategy once in the qualifying rounds and once in the elimination rounds, without being disqualified.

Hmmm. Tristan, didn't you ref at one point? If so, would you consider a 9-13 foot tall robot falling towards either the robots or the refs/scorers/judges as a safety hazard? And, if a robot is deemed a safety hazard, it can be DQ'd, right? Not only that, but if it is routinely a safety hazard, the refs can refuse to allow it to compete until it is no longer a hazard, if I read the rules correctly.

I may be lawyering the rules a bit much, but I think this is the easy way to discourage this/allow red cards. Also, this effectively disables other robots (even more of a stretch).