Safe Mechanisms in 2014

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

The discussion in this thread has me slightly worried, not about our design, but about the standard of "safe" varying between inspectors and between events. We've seen this in the past with things like chain guards or spinning wheel guards.

Is there a universal standard that can be set for the burden of proof that a mechanism is safe? Is it simply "make sure a positive action is needed to fire, and there is no chance of misfire" ? That's good enough for me.

What I would not want to happen is for a mechanism to be deemed illegal when an inspector's opinion is that it is not safe. That's not a good way to go about this. Thoughts?

Sanddrag brought this up in another thread, and I think it's a discussion worth having. I feel this year has a significant potential for teams to show up at events with unsafe mechanisms. It takes a reasonably large amount of energy to launch the ball, and the more inefficient your mechanism is, the more energy it takes. I would wager there is also correlation between teams with inefficient mechanisms and teams likely to build less safe mechanisms. On top of that, this year there is no easy way out if your team wants to score truss points or in the high goal. In 2008 if you didn't feel safe or comfortable launching the ball, you could build an elevator or arm. In 2010 if you didn't want to kick, you could always push the ball into the goal. This year if you want to do the cool task, you've got to launch the ball.

Is there a precedence for ruling a robot ineligible if the lead robot inspector feels it is unsafe? Obviously the rules say that they can. In my years of FRC I've seen many teams be asked to install additional shields and safeguards, but I've never seen a team told they couldn't play. If a LRI has to make that call, I do not envy them.

I like the suggestion, but I'm not sure if it's possible to come up with a universal standard of safety as Sanddrag suggests. Some things just make you feel uncomfortable even if they meet the letter of the law, and it seems to me that those things should not be given the opportunity to injure people.