Fit to be Tethered: New Rule

[FRCOps]

aka: The Trouble with Tethers, or Rules of Entanglement

Starting with the answer to the question:
Yes, the rules on tethers have been loosened. And, we apologize. Why? We had to. Please read on.

Is this unfair to teams that correctly and strictly interpreted our rules updates as posted during the season? Probably. We know it, and please believe that we don't feel great about the way it went down. We're sorry.

Now, the details. We loosened up on the tethering rules, as a result of VCU. Want to know why? We asked a certain Pappalardo Professor of Engineering at MIT for his guidance. Maybe you’ve heard of him - Dr. Woodie Flowers. Dr. Flowers' comments to us at VCU were basically that if the teams have put time and effort into engineering a tether or tethered device, let them demonstrate it. We also thought back to the kickoff and Dean's approval of being able to be in 2 places at once.

So what the rule has become is that unless it's a piece of string or flimsy unprotected wire, it can be deployed. With Woodie's estimable guidance in place, the situation changed. (Please, don’t contact him.)

As a result, we are allowing the less egregious tethers to be used, because that is what we must do. It is unfair to the teams that avoided them expecting a strict rule interpretation up until now. But it is clearly worse to allow the current angst over this issue to continue.

Know that below the noise level here, we really are disallowing some mechanisms that clearly would cause entanglement. Also, the lack of resolution on the webcasts -for the 99% of you without a dedicated 1GB/second web server available - makes some decent tether designs appear as loose wire, when in fact they are protected, encased, hinged units.

That's a wrap. Sorry about the change in direction. Those team members that are extremely angry about this: please believe that the 15 people who make all of this happen are not trying to make everyone's lives miserable; we are as committed as you are to an excellent FIRST, and we want everyone's experience to be as positive as possible.