Crushing Balls?

[aaeamdar]

Originally Posted by jgannon

By your account, I nailed the answer in post #3. Why are you disappointed that the conversation has since wandered elsewhere? That's how conversations work: a topic is discussed until interested parties are satisfied, and then often progresses along tangents. People repeating what I already said doesn't add any value to the community; exploration of related ideas does. There's no need for yelling, snippyness, or disappointment... just relax and enjoy the discussion.

Sorry, maybe I was somewhat misunderstood. I don't think there was anything wrong with how the discussion went except for the two answers that were misleading (discussed at length above). This is why I apologized for saying,

"

Originally Posted by aaeamdar

I feel a little disappointed that in 15 posts, no one has really answered the original question

This is also why I took great pains to stress that I had no problem with the posts that I labeled as "off-topic":

Originally Posted by aaeamdar

First and foremost: when I say "offtopic" I do not mean bad in any way, and I definitely should have been less whiny about "in 15 posts no one answered the blah blah". These posts (the ones I characterized as "offtopic") were often useful and interesting to read (and I did read all of them). Many of them gave indirect insight into the question asked by the OP.

Does reading that really give you the impression that I had something against how the conversation went?

As to "nailed the answer": while I did find your answer to be useful (and I hope the OP felt the same), it did not 100% answer the question. You said,

Originally Posted by jgannon

If you slam into the wall at 20fps, a ball rolls in between just in time, and the result is a pile of plastic and spandex, odds are that it will be considered incidental. However, if there is something particular about your robot design that is conducive to regularly destroying game pieces, odds are that you won't be allowed back on the field until you fix it.

I felt that in giving my answer, it was important to quote the rule in question. I fully respect your possibly different opinion of what constitutes "100% answer[ing] the question". Different people have different opinions on what constitutes a good answer to the question - sometimes quoting the rules is actually an inferior way to go, as the rules can be so arcane (*coughbumperscough*) that a more down-to-earth explanation is actually more understandable. And that's the great thing about a forum such as this one. Someone posts a question, and they get many answers back, which allows them to more fully understand the answer.

In short, I would ask you to re-read my second posting and reconsider your characterization of my opinion of the discussion thus far. I hope that you will come to a different opinion, though I understand if you don't.

-Paul