Einstein?

[eugenebrooks]

Inoperable is a completely broken state, aka dead on the field,
or if next years game is in water as some have rumored, dead
in the water. Inoperable also means dead in the sense that it
can't be made operable in an allowed timeout. If you had a
wheel knocked off you might consider yourself inoperable, but
then again you might bolt on a caster and continue to play as
1280 did as a finalist in SVR last year.

A robot with an arm ripped off is not inoperable, it can still play
defense. A robot with a lift that comes up 1/4 inch short of
12 inches can still lift a pair of robots 4 inches and score 30 points
doing it. This is far from inoperable. If your robot could not roll
around on the carpet, I would call it inoperable.

You pick your alliance, and you play your elimination matches.
If a robot is inoperable, it is quite obvious to everyone.

Eugene