Springs?? (10 lbs. at 22 ft/s)

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

Patrick,
I think you need to sit back and think long and hard about what you just said, especially to other young minds around this forum.

"That said -- more power to you if you want to try"

Do you know how many great inventions probably started with the exact same sentence?? I would bet almost all of the great ones.

Teams WILL throw this ball, and teams WILL do it safely, and teams WILL do it effectively.

I'd love to see it, and I hope it works out well -- nowhere in my remarks was I being in any way sarcastic. I wasn't even being _pessimistic_.

It is not unreasonable to point out that certain approaches are harder than others, and also that the act of physically launching the ball carries a great deal more safety issues tied up in it than lifting the ball in some manner.

I certainly _do_ hope to see safely-launched balls. I certainly _do_ hope that all teams rise to the challenge of this game in the best way that they know how. I certainly _do not_ want to see teams that cannot hurdle at all because they haven't fully considered all of the ramifications of their approach, and now have a robot that will not be allowed to play based on safety concerns.

How awful would it be to show up with a fully-functional, killer-app bot and then not be allowed to use it? The fact that the judging of the safety is both discretionary and subjective just means that even more caution needs to be taken.

It _is_ quite amazing what thirty-thousand minds bent to a single task can accomplish. I'm sure some teams will pull off safely-launched balls, and be both effective and amazing. I'm *not* so sure that they'll do it with a spring capable of throwing 10 lbs at 22 ft/sec, which is the topic of this thread.

Patrick