Unscheduled Team Update: 3-20-2014

[Andy A.]

Originally Posted by atucker4072

The only thing that I could see being called is the collision right after autonomous. That in my mind would be a high speed collision and definitely seems like it could have damaging effects.

It didn't appear terribly high speed to me. It doesn't seem any higher speed than a dozen other hits in that match. My interpretation is that the red robot probably didn't adequately secure its Anderson connector. Is that the blue robots fault?

And there in sort of lies the problem. One persons 'high speed' is anothers reasonable bump (which, incidentally is really effective this year). On top of asking refs to gauge whether damage occurs (a non trivial task!) does anyone expect them to figure out what 'High-Speed' means, and apply that evenly?

I would be happy if FIRST just established some non-subjective criteria for what it considers fair play. A top speed, for instance, would be wonderful. Tell me what 'high speed' means in feet per second and I'll limit the robot to that in code and never have to worry about the penalty (neither will the refs!). Everyone can then design a robot and bumpers around a known impact (150lb robot moving at Xfps) going into the season.

I'm glad I didn't volunteer as a ref this year. Seems like an impossible job.