crash and bash confusion?????

[nick reynolds]

These 2 posts were on the last two updates from FIRST. #37 #38...

Q: The analogy with football is good, but still worrisome. If our Robot's intent is to change the direction of another robot (not to damage it), by ramming it at high speed, would this be judged "malicious" and disqualify our robot? Similarly, if our intent is to make the other robot "fumble" by dislodging the goal from its grasp, would the high-speed collision be judged malicious and disqualify our robot? Would the design of the other robot influence the judges' decision?
That is, if the opposing robot looks rugged, then the judges might rule in our favor, but if the opposing robot is flimsy, they may rule against us.

A: Worrisome? Hmm. What you're asking us to do is allow you to blitz
the quarterback with no possibility of penalty, no matter what you do.
If you've ever been a football fan, think about it. Your actions would
probably be taken as malicious. There's rules in football about
people hitting the quarterback in the head (at all) and about unnecessary roughness. This is probably because in the early 'days of football, the referees' union got tired of hearing, "Hey ref I wasn't trying to hurt him, I was just trying to make him fumble!". Or,
"Hey, he's a wimpy quarterback! A tough one would have taken that hit!".
In the NFL, they don't judge whether the linebacker is roughing
the passer by whether the QB is Dante Culpepper or Doug Flutie.

Q: why is FIRST heading into battlebot mode? I am hoping to have a
unit for display, training, recruitment, etc after the
competition. To spend over $6000 and perhaps be
destroyed seems to me to be a giant step backwards.
- cam brown
team 360

A: Cam, be assured that we're not going into "Battlebot" mode. People
invest a lot of time and money and sweat building the robots; we're
not going to allow actions that would obviously and deliberately
damage or risk damaging the robots.


IM SO CONFUSED. WHAT IS FIRST TELLING US???? SPIT IT OUT.
ENQUIERING MINDS WANT TO KNOW.

HOW DO YOU ALL INTERPERATE THIS CONFUSION.