Driver & Human Safety

[Kims Robot]

So I know this issue has come up in several threads, and I will reference this paticular rule discussion.

But I wanted to start a new thread, as I felt mine is more geared towards the safety of drivers and human players.

I am starting to understand the rule that was referenced above. While I think it is now just listed as a safety penalty, and the robot gets disabled, I think they are being more lenient than was expected (ie if the tetra is just barely over the station, a lot of times they could get away with it). But I am starting to see why the safety rule was put in.

However, this weekend at Toronto, I was absolutely appalled at the implementation of this rule. A team from the opposite alliance drove over to our side of the field to score a tetra which was poised very high in the air... They swung around and the tetra went flying off over the barrier and the corner of it hit our driver in the head, and proceeded to fall off of our coach. It was sickening to watch them duck and cover themselves as they realized what was going on. I watched as the ref noticed it, went to tell another ref, and then had to run to the other side of the field and make the human player step off the pad to disable it! By this time, the other robot was already all the way on the other side of the field! I actually felt angry that FIRST didnt have a better safety precaution.

Another time, at the Buckeye regional, I watched on the sidelines as our alliances human player ran out to his robot at the far loading zone, and as he was running back, our robot was pulling into the close loading zone and almost speared him. I know our drivers probably never saw him, and the human player was so focused on getting back to the pad, and staying in the lines, but I couldnt believe how dangerous it was. I wondered why FIRST didnt make the human players going to the far loading station run a U shape around the close loading zone... instead they get crammed into the same space.

I guess my question in the end, is where is FIRST's master kill switch for the robots? At our mini-scrimmage before ship, we had master switches for every robot. Each team had one at their station, and there were "refs" watching each alliance with three switches in their hands. If there was any question of safety, the robot would be disabled immediately... why on earth doesnt FIRST have something like this???