[EricH]

Originally Posted by Woody1458

I personally dont like the idea of a launching robot and I think it is unsafe. There were some issues at some 2006 regionals where balls were shot at the tech guys knocking over things. This was with small nerf balls. 8lb balls hurled with enough force to conciderably clear the 78" overpass could do worse. Some rambunctious members of my school have clearly proved that a seemingly lightly thrown trackball could injure a person no problem. Even with the victim expecting the blow. My convern is that if this is proven to be a saftey concern does any regional inspection team have the cajones to start disabling the ten plus shooting robots that will attend each competition. I think teams might get by just based upon sheer numbers of people the inspectors would have to DQ to declare this stratagy unsafe. Thoughts? Comments? Maybe I'm way off and bing a total idiot

There is definitely a safety issue, yes. Will the inspectors/refs DQ teams due to safety? Possibly. Remember, it's not the inspector's job to issue a DQ, it's the ref's. The inspector makes sure the robot is safe and legal, and can keep a robot from competing if there is a safety issue.

I think that, provided the launching only goes over the overpass, there should be no issue. If it starts going over field side "walls", then there would be an big issue.