Flipping Rule

[kevin.li.rit]

Originally Posted by sastoller

Has anyone seen the refs check the tipped robot's bumper height after a tipping incident, before giving a yellow or red card to the tipping robot?

It seems to me that if the tipped robot had bumpers that were above the 12" height limit, the tipping robot should not be penalized. I realize that all robots are inspected prior to playing in qualification matches, but I have seen several cases where bumper brackets become bent during a match from repeated collisions and are no longer within the 12" height limit by the end of the match. This just seems like something the ref's should be sure of when making a decision to give a yellow or red card. This is something that teams with already high bumpers should keep a close eye on as well.

Unfortunately, this is yet another case where the rules call on the refs to judge the intent of a robot/driver. It's a bad deal all around, but I don't know a better way to assess a penalty for tipping in a physical game like Stronghold. It's a shame that there seems to be a lack of consistency between the Head Refs at different events on these "intent rules", and as a result, this has significantly changed the outcome of several events.

Part of the bumper problem is when you robot has a center wheel drop and the robot changes direction, the bumper height will change causing it to get wedged under/over another robot. No rules on the bumpers are violated (correct me if I'm wrong) since it will still pass bumper height requirements when standing normally on the floor. For our robot we realized this and put the bumpers in the middle of the bumper zone so it would still stay in the bumper zone regardless of which 4 wheels are touching the ground.

Maybe this is something FIRST should address next year?