Punctured Atlas Ball

[ChrisH]

Originally Posted by Richard

My rookie year as a lead robot inspector for FRC was 2004; the atlas ball was used in that year's game (FIRST Frenzy: Raising the Bar) as a point multiplier goal capper. That was the year I became fanatical about the "no sharp edges" rule during robot inspections. Blood on the 'bot is bad, blood on the field is worse. And likewise, delay of game due to a punctured gamepiece will definitely lead to a mandatory reinspection. It happened, more than once.

I'll be the lead robot inspector at the St. Louis FVC Championship Tournament, the weekend after next. We will be looking for those sharp edges. There will be spare atlas balls on hand, but let's make sure we don't need them.

We had a punctured ball at the Glendale (CA) Vex event. As one of the refs we considered briefly penalizing the team that punctured the ball. But a) the portion of the robot that pierced the ball was not particularly sharp (normal VEX edges), and b) the team that punctured the ball had it pushed into them, so it wasn't intentional. So we let it go with a warning.

So it can happen even if you don't intend it.