Accepted Tethers

[Mark Hamilton]

Nothing is worse then seeing all your great ideas out on the field, which your own team threw out because they violated the entanglement rule. We barely got our own extender, a rigid spring loaded arm, which we struggled to get under weight, built, only to see robots with flimsy cables and small little "mouse" bots out there. An attempt by me to move with our extender out severly bent it, and I couldnt help but think if we had just ignored the rules our extender would be lighter, faster, and easier. Either way I'm proud to say our extender arm works and there can be no question to its legality. FIRST competitions arent supposed to be about sneaking by in gray areas in the rules. If you know your tether was most likely against the rules, why would you build it?