[Ken Streeter]

Originally Posted by Jeffy

AT OKC (week 4): Teams were getting called for chains, treads, surgical tubing, ect. that were still attached to the robot, but not being called for pieces that completely fell off.

What specific rule is being referenced for these penalties? Is G30 the rule that referees are interpreting in this way? It seems to me that the wording of G41 is written such that accidentally / unintentionally detached parts do not incur a penalty, with the exception of the bumper covers.

If referees are calling penalties for accidentally-detached parts, this sets up a judgement call with regard to the size of said parts. How big does the detached part need to be in order to incur a penalty? Is a 1" piece of 80/20 big enough? How about a 0.5" long 1/4-20 bolt? How about a #4-40 nut? How about a tooth chipped off a small plastic gear? What about a small piece (1mm cube) of rubber from a tire tread? How about dust coming off a timing belt that hops occasionally?

I might be mistaken about this, but my impression is that the GDC's intent was not to penalize teams for every accidental occurrence of a part falling off a robot!

Yes, it clearly doesn't make a positive impression on sponsors to have robots regularly falling apart on the field, but this level of penalization seems to go beyond my reading of this year's rules.