Is FRC giving high CG robots a free pass on defense?

[EricH]

I'm going to go on record as saying a few things.

1) Search for "tipping". This topic has come up already this season. I'll save you the trouble and post a few links.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...hlight=tipping
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...hlight=tipping
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...hlight=tipping
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...hlight=tipping

2) You may notice that one of the threads involves replay. Please, please, please, do NOT ignite that discussion again this quickly--it can get rather heated, and is being worked on for offseasons. (You can start the 2Champs discussion in about 2 weeks, though.)

3) Assuming that the refs don't know the cost of a red card is not a good assumption to make. Trust me. A LOT of refs either are on teams or have been on teams. They know. It's not easy to bring out a red card, unless you do something that's a yellow and you already have one.

A red card can be assigned to strategies aimed at tipping, if it incapacitates a robot. That's in general a yellow card, though.




And there is one other thing I need to say:

5 weeks ago, in one of those linked threads, the discussion was NOT on whether the high CG robots were getting a free pass. It was whether the robots that tip them--on legal hits--were getting a free pass! With the combined discussion, I'm starting to wonder why we had so many refs sign up this year (that's sarcasm: we had to "aggressively recruit" a fair number of 'em out my way).