[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by pfreivald

I'd love to see it, and I hope it works out well -- nowhere in my remarks was I being in any way sarcastic. I wasn't even being _pessimistic_.

It is not unreasonable to point out that certain approaches are harder than others, and also that the act of physically launching the ball carries a great deal more safety issues tied up in it than lifting the ball in some manner.

I certainly _do_ hope to see safely-launched balls. I certainly _do_ hope that all teams rise to the challenge of this game in the best way that they know how. I certainly _do not_ want to see teams that cannot hurdle at all because they haven't fully considered all of the ramifications of their approach, and now have a robot that will not be allowed to play based on safety concerns.

How awful would it be to show up with a fully-functional, killer-app bot and then not be allowed to use it? The fact that the judging of the safety is both discretionary and subjective just means that even more caution needs to be taken.

It _is_ quite amazing what thirty-thousand minds bent to a single task can accomplish. I'm sure some teams will pull off safely-launched balls, and be both effective and amazing. I'm *not* so sure that they'll do it with a spring capable of throwing 10 lbs at 22 ft/sec, which is the topic of this thread.

Patrick

Patrick,
I apologize if you think I was be condescending earlier. And you are correct that it is not an easy task to launch a ball safely.

However, I am 100% certain it is going to happen, as I'm sure you are. I just feel you may want to be more careful in what you say (as what you said sounded pretty pessimistic, even if you said it in an optimistic way).

Brando