pic: Boilermaker Final Lift

[d.courtney]

Originally Posted by Richard

This was discussed in another thread, starting with post #146.

Everyone involved -- teams, referees, inspectors, etc. -- missed this violation of <R37> and the Q&A response confirming that standard bumpers must maintain correct height while lifting.

We missed a similar situation during Friday matches in St. Louis (Week 1) but corrected it Saturday morning.

The rules are too opaque. The fault the rules now possess is if your robot is tipped you are violating rules, are too heavy and should be disqualified because the bumper goes 28 inches high (and then it's both you and the tipper disqualified). Also if the point of reference is the ground as in this case, what allows the bumper of the robot that climbs a ramp to be higher then 8 inches (are we now going to make it illegal to climb ramps when sporting a bumper?).
Also why is this bumper illegal in FIRST's mind? It serves its purpose and just happens to lift at the end.