Minibot Falling off pole - Penalty?

[Ken Streeter]

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

At bayou, the refs are calling a penalty for any instance where a minibot falls off the pole. Is this happening at other regionals? I've seen many a minibot fall off at other regionals, sans penalty

To me, this seems like a good situation in which to apply the guidance contained in yesterday's Bills' Blog concerning mis-communication at FRC Events:

...If you encounter a miss-communication at any FRC events in the future, please turn to the 2011 Manual first, then with rule in hand, discuss the problem with the event volunteer. If you cannot come to an agreement, go to the Event Manager or FTA both of whom can contact FIRST HQ if they can’t resolve the issue themselves.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Update: Our team spoke to the head ref this morning about the rule and he informed us they would not be calling this as a penalty afterall. Thanks everyone for the input.

[Ken Streeter]

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

Update: Our team spoke to the head ref this morning about the rule and he informed us they would not be calling this as a penalty afterall. Thanks everyone for the input.

Glad to hear that the issue was resolved!

I also noticed (at least as well as could be seen from the webcast) that it seemed that 125 was successfully deploying the minibot yesterday without it falling off the pole! (Or, if it was falling off the pole, it was doing so after crash-landing on the base at the bottom.)

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by Ken Streeter

Glad to hear that the issue was resolved!

I also noticed (at least as well as could be seen from the webcast) that it seemed that 125 was successfully deploying the minibot yesterday without it falling off the pole! (Or, if it was falling off the pole, it was doing so after crash-landing on the base at the bottom.)

Yes, when we heard originally they were going to be calling it a penalty, we added a feature to keep it on the pole. We were quite pleased with our Minibot performance, at one point we had 10 consecutive Minibot deployments and first place finishes.

Brando