Well, looking at the robot on the video, it pretty clearly violates G22. Considering the discussion around G22 here on CD and in the Q&A forums, I am surprised this was not apparent to the team when they designed their robot. This is quite a different case than the
"two robots" or "one robot" issue, where the team complied with all the rules and Q&A as they were written, but then were arbitrarily declared in non-compliance at the competition. It is ironic that in this case the team was given an award for their design, but 1519 was not.
However I believe there may be a way for this design to comply with G22. G22 states that the robot must break the plane in a clockwise direction. Would it be possible to build an extra appendage on to the end of the arm, such that the appendage rotates (assuming the home stretch is q1) from q2 into q3, and then back into the home stretch in a clockwise direction. I can't really show that here easily, but I'm sure someone with sufficient motivation could figure out what I am talking about.
OR the team could, on their first pass around, take a penalty, but drop a small part of the robot, attached by a cord, into each quadrant. At this point the robot would be in all four quadrants at the same time, and should no longer be subject to penalties.
I know, I know... this probably falls into the "lawyering" the rules concept.. at least the second suggestion does... the first one strikes me as being in keeping with both the wording and intent of the rules, but I do have some sympathy for the team, who probably never thought they were violating G22 when they designed this.... even though I think it is pretty clear that with their present set up, they do.
Jason