Update #16

[John Gutmann]

As many other people I agree and disagree with the rule. Because lets face, not everyone in FIRST is mature enough to use tools. I have seen kids in my team almost been severly injured from fooling around. I have seen a kid from my team sit at a table for 20 minutes and ust make a huge solderball. Yes, I agree, don't let them in the pits, but the stupid people are only half the problem. It isn't that if you know how to use a tool correctly you will never get hurt. What is your match is in 5 mins and you need to cut comething really quick and you forget to put on saftely goggles. Also FIRST is about learning and engineering. I know none of you design your robots to break intentionally, but maybe FIRST is showing us we need to tihnk about our designs more wisely.

But also, bad things do happen and almost everyone needs to make some kind of repair on there robot. Maybe some robot on the field was breaking to rules and ripped something off your robot? now you need a way to drill a new hole and tap it. I sure would let someone in the machine shop do that to my robot. Especially if it means I have no roboto for 3 hours.

Let's not over react here, think about how many teams get by with a hacksaw, cordless drill, and file. And well if FIRST bans cordless drills, I guess it is time to blow the dust off of those good ole' hand crank drills.