pic: Deflating the tube (the easy way)

[Greg Marra]

Originally Posted by Rich Ross

3) It drives the crowd wild! they love seeing the ref cut those things open.

I'm not sure "love" is the correct word. I think the emotion the audience feels when they see a ref cut up a keeper is closer to "I could have used that to go sledding!"

[Sagar Vyas]

I found it rather odd that the head ref has a knife set or whatever it was.

[Jonathan Norris]

yea they did the same thing for the first match at BAE, I don't think i saw it done for any other matches. I think it was just more for show then anything practical.

[Andy B]

I was not at this regional, so I cannot speak as if I know the entire reasons for cutting the innertubes, but from what I understand, it seems that the innertubes were cut because it was easier to do that than to take them off the spider legs or out of robot's manipulators. If that is the case, I must say I am astonished to see FIRST do something like that. If it was done out of laziness, as it seems it was, I am astonished that first would allow that to happen. It only adds to the partially true sterotype that Americans are lazy which completely goes against FIRST's goals.

[Josh Murphy]

I was at this regional and I was a volunteer for field reset. The robots on the field were doing a pretty good job at deflating these things let alone the head ref doing it with a pocket knife. It was a nightmare trying to keep the field going with ringers getting poped left and right. There was one match where one robot popped 7 tubes and several other occasions where at least 5 went. All I could say is "why did first choose these tubes".

[nikeairmancurry]

That would be our Keeper being cut off (Team 326). It was the first of two tubes he cut off of are robot, the ruling we were giving was that the Keeper was apparently still on the robot. I don't know if you guys can see that. The Second time was a spoiler that was hanging on the black rubber piece on the spider arm. To add insult to injury, he gave us the tube back, we hang it in our pit as a reminder that he can put keepers on during auton.

[Alex Cormier]

Originally Posted by Josh Murphy

I was at this regional and I was a volunteer for field reset. The robots on the field were doing a pretty good job at deflating these things let alone the head ref doing it with a pocket knife. It was a nightmare trying to keep the field going with ringers getting poped left and right. There was one match where one robot popped 7 tubes and several other occasions where at least 5 went. All I could say is "why did first choose these tubes".

i hear ya, same thing for FLR.

[jgannon]

Originally Posted by Andy B

I was not at this regional, so I cannot speak as if I know the entire reasons for cutting the innertubes, but from what I understand, it seems that the innertubes were cut because it was easier to do that than to take them off the spider legs or out of robot's manipulators. If that is the case, I must say I am astonished to see FIRST do something like that. If it was done out of laziness, as it seems it was, I am astonished that first would allow that to happen. It only adds to the partially true sterotype that Americans are lazy which completely goes against FIRST's goals.

Yes, keepers have been cut because it's easier to take them away from robots that way. No, it's not because the refs are lazy. During week 1, refs were wrestling them away from the robots. 375 sustained some damage to their gripper at NJ because of this interaction, and I'm sure they weren't the only ones who were at least uneasy with the idea of an outsider tugging on their robot. It's a little overdramatic, but it seems like a much better solution than hardlining on the disqualification for late keepers. Let the teams play.

[Andrew Blair]

Originally Posted by Greg Marra

"I could have used that to go sledding!"

They're like greased lightning on melting snow! Anyways, They're ~ a dollar a piece, and if FIRST blows 15 dollars a regional in order to run the matches faster and make the refs feel good, I don't really care. The tubes seem to have a limited life span anyways, so consider that they killed it quickly, instead of letting it slowly die alone, on a cold, lonely rack.

[HUNT397]

Originally Posted by Andrew Blair

They're like greased lightning on melting snow! Anyways, They're ~ a dollar a piece, and if FIRST blows 15 dollars a regional in order to run the matches faster and make the refs feel good, I don't really care. The tubes seem to have a limited life span anyways, so consider that they killed it quickly, instead of letting it slowly die alone, on a cold, lonely rack.

I agree a few dollars per regional is worth it to let the ref's let off a little steam. And Ron Webb is either the best or one of the best ref's in the states who gets a lot of grief because he calls matches to the book with no exceptions. I cant wait for tomorrow where hopefully he is the head ref of the Detroit regional again.

[Jherbie53]

Originally Posted by Andrew Blair

Anyways, They're ~ a dollar a piece, and if FIRST blows 15 dollars a regional in order to run the matches faster and make the refs feel good, I don't really care. The tubes seem to have a limited life span anyways, so consider that they killed it quickly, instead of letting it slowly die alone, on a cold, lonely rack.

If it really makes the regionals go faster, then I'm not complaining. Besides 15 dollars a regional for one year is really nothing. It just seemed odd that they would let the refs do that.

[willy_d]

come on... just let a man be a MAN! tell me you wouldn't gnash things as much as you could given the chance.

[HUNT397]

OK i might be a little off topic but I really missed this man at the Detroit Regional. Teams were getting rough. Some rules were either ignored or over looked but hitting outside the bumper zone occurred breaking arms on multiple teams. I know if Ron was present teams would have been warned alot earlier about how rough they were playing. Hope whatever reason he was not there for this year does not happen again next year.

[Dan Petrovic]

The head ref at Boilermaker cut a ton of keepers. He wouldn't even bother trying to get a keeper out of a claw. He ran right out with scissors and cut it up.

Not even a knife! He did use a knife later on, though.

[Swan217]

I was personally not a big fan of euthenizing defenseless tubes, even in a scoring position. If I saw a team with a keeper, I went up to them and asked if we'd be able to yank the tube from their grippers, instead of stabbing first and asking questions later.