[FRC Blog] Orlando Incident

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

I missed it? What exactly was the issue with the one robot? Were they out of compliance with robot construction rules, or overweight or something?

Here's the team's description of what happened: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...&postcount=124

In short... They took off part of their robot and replaced it with 2 FRC batteries to act as ballast. They asked an inspector before they made the modification, and after it was done got reweighed and the inspector said it was all good.

They then competed like that in two matches, the opposing alliance challenged it based on their understanding from the rules that having multiple batteries on the robot was illegal, and those involved in the decision (the head ref, FTA, and LRI) were not aware of and had no way to show that the team had passed reinspection - from their point of view, the team competed with an illegal robot, and as a result the alliance was disqualified from the two matches they won, and lost their chance to compete in the semifinals.

Read through the thread linked for more information, there are a few posts from the teams involved on both sides,with both alliances unhappy with the eventual outcome.