Yellow card / Red card usage at 2004 IRI

[MrToast]

Originally Posted by Jeff Waegelin

I think if FIRST were to implement a disable penalty system like you suggest, the rules for disables would need to be extremely well-defined. If you rely on one lone referee to make a snap judgement, you open up the whole situation for argument. And, even with well-defined disable rules, you will still have plenty of controversy every time a robot gets shut off. No matter how defined the rules are, teams will always complain and say the rule does not apply in that situation.

I'm going to toot my own horn here a little bit...

This was what I originally came up with in the <G101> thread. Three cards (Black, Yellow, Red). A black card is issued for overly aggresive behavior and results in a 5 second shutoff for that robot. A yellow card is issued when a robot damages part of another robot and results in a 10 second shutoff for the offending robot. A red card is issued when a robot disables (IE, tips, destroys vital components) another robot and results in a 15 second shutoff for the offending robot.

Perhaps I'm speaking from inexperience here, but it shouldn't be TOO hard to make these calls. I think it wouldn't be that difficult to see when a robot is being really aggresive or damages/disables another robot. A temporary shutoff time seems like an adequate penalty (perhaps throw in some point reductions?) because it could seriously hamper one alliance's strategy. So if you screw up somebody else's strat by being violent, your strat should get screwed too. Seems fair.

You can see my post (with much more detail) here: <G101> Thread

Enjoy!

MrToast