Penalties for a part falling off of robot?

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by Kims Robot

Did anyone ask about this in the Q&A yet?

It was being called in Boston too, and I don't really get it. Teams are intentionally detaching parts to change the game. 229 didnt get penalized when they blew a tread because they hit the estop. But 1100 dropped out I think half their drivetrain in a match with us and got a penalty (even though they appeared to be disabled after that). I wasnt on the field and dont know the specific calls, but at any rate, robots falling apart after being designed and built in 6 weeks shouldnt cause a penalty. No one designs their robots to fall apart, but things break... I cant recall this ever being a penalty in FIRST in the past. Maybe we all need to use the fact that we can all now use duct tape and wrap our robots in duct tape or even saran wrap so they cant drop anything!

Given the inconsistency of penalty calls for loss of robot parts in various regionals, I posted a question in Q&A Section 7. If loss of robot part on the field is deemed a penalty, I asked whether it is still a penalty if the robot was damaged by impact from another robot.

We can go down a slippery slope if a penalty is assessed for making contact with a robot and that robot loses a part.