Drawbridge Technique: Legal or not?

[Purpose]

Originally Posted by EricH

Here's my thoughts on it (with my ref hat--NOT my judge hat, this isn't their job--on):

As seen in the video, if I saw it happen, the robot would meet the definition of Crossing, assuming it were in the Neutral Zone completely when it broke contact.

However, there are 5 other robots on the field that could get in the way of seeing it or command attention for something else--say, applying a hit on somebody ELSE while they're trying to cross a Defense. So that's a bit of an "If".

Your best chance to get credit is to alert the refs during practice matches that "hey, we like to use this method to Cross the Group C Defenses, can you check it?" Trust me, as a ref, we LOVE it when teams ask us whether they're doing something per the rules during practice, because if they aren't, they can correct it, and if they're borderline (like some of the faster HPs last year) we get a chance to see what we need to be watching for and help the team adjust to get the result they want.

So basically, it is probably legal but risky, as far as the rules are currently written. To me it seems worth the risk, it is a very easy method of clearing it...

Thanks for the great discussion so far everyone