[YMTC]: Breaking robots

[Mr. Lim]

I am very curious to see how others would make the call on this one.

I suppose I will share my preliminary thoughts, which would be:

1) Red 1 should be assessed a 50pt Tech Foul for extending continuously beyond 20".

2) Blue 1 should be assessed a 20pt Foul for causing damage inside the frame perimeter to Red 1. It should NOT be a 50pt Tech Foul because it was not a strategic attempt to cause damage.

The net penalty advantage is +30pts for Blue.

It's a rough scenario for both teams, as they each have a reason to be upset:

Red 1 gets a Tech Foul even though it was their robot that was broken due to the collision.

Blue 1 gets a Foul even though all they did was try and pick up their own ball.

One could argue that a broken part sticking out of Red 1 beyond 20" creates a potential safety hazard to the many people standing at the edge of the field, thus "justifying" the 30pt net penalty. After the collision, Blue 1 never becomes a potential safety hazard, but Red 1 does. Although it seems like a large penalty hit, in relation to G40 - another safety-related rule that results in a 50pt swing, the net 30pt at least seems consistent.

As for the other considerations:

1. Intent matters in this case. Blue 1's intentions are the difference between Blue 1 getting a 20pt Foul vs a 50pt Tech Foul. In this case, the evidence for intentional strategic damage would probably have to be pretty compelling: Blue 1 no longer makes any attempt to pick up their ball at all, in fact their ball is nowhere nearby, and they drive full speed directly at Red 1 unimpeded with their intake out. That's one of the only scenarios I can think of where the 50pt Tech Foul could be convincingly called over the 20pt Foul.

2. Autonomous mode scenario. Assuming all other factors are the same, I wouldn't change my assessment above. Even intentional strategic damage in autonomous per above is feasible if an obvious "torpedo" program is run where Blue 1 rams Red 1 with its intake out.

3. Repeated >20" oscillations. If the broken part oscillates in and out of the 20" limit, I would consider this "repeatedly" which results in the same penalty as "continuous" - a single 50pt Tech Foul on Red 1. How many times would it have to oscillateto be considered repeated? Maybe 3?

4. >20" part breaks off. This is where things get murky. If the broken part detaches completely from the robot, BEFORE it extends past 20" from the frame perimeter, it looks like there should be no penalty. If for a moment the part is still attached to the robot as it breaks the 20" limit, it is at least a 20pt Foul. Depending on how long the >20" broken part stays attached to the robot before it breaks completely off (is it continuous?), and if the broken part oscillates in and out of the 20" limit (is it repeated?) will dictate whether this is upgraded to a 50pt Tech Foul. Anecdotally, if I had made the call, staying extended for longer than about 5 seconds, or oscillating in and out of the 20" limit say, 3 times, would probably be my benchmarks.