I would argue last year’s bots were far more dangerous, as they had to launch heavy balls. Our burgulars are motor-powered, so no energy is stored on the bot.
Finding the correct rule to limit this would be tricky.
I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather get hit by a ball than whipped by a fishing pole/hockey stick/piece of PVC. I’m not sure what more can be done than making sure anything that has the potential to move is locked in place as part of the transport configuration, and that the driveteam is ready and willing to E-Stop in auto should something go wrong. Definitely not my favorite part of this game.
But you certainly wouldn’t rather get hit by the launcher itself from last year (which would likely break bones).
Very true. I was mostly referring to safety during a match, where canburglars pose a risk to people standing near the field due to their long reach should they get turned away from the step. In the pits, in the queue, and on the practice field, a dry-firing catapult could easily cause more damage.
How did you come to the number 2? Why not 1, 3, 4, or even none. Do you plan on failing every team with less than 2 safety latches? What if the inspector beside you is requiring 1, or none?
Never fear, John.
Robot inspectors have lead robot inspectors to turn to when it is not obvious how to decide what is or is not allowed by the rules. A team that does not agree with their robot inspector’s decision can also turn to the lead robot inspector. Lead robot inspectors have weekly conference calls. The leader of all the lead robot inspectors reads CD frequently. As does the leader of the FRC.
I count several layers of backup. Bring on those energetic burglars.
No argument on the appeals process. But given that inconsistency in rules enforcement at Worlds is anything but new, this is a reasonable concern for the year. Fortunately the real showdown this year will likely be at such a high level and within such a small and professionally inter-related group of teams that they’ll be able to cross-check. (Certainly JVN must be well versed in navigating through the RI system.)
NEVER any fear here – especially because I’ve never been accused of being energetic.
(Also, our robot tether isn’t allowed in the auto zone pre-match, so the Batman as a Canburglar isn’t really a thing.)
We can’t have a canburglar either 
There are pros and cons of having a tether… Ratman is pretty much confined to the feeder area.
From what I’ve seen, your energy is deceptively high, John.
However, I was thinking about the concern you expressed for the top-tier canburglars. And I really do expect to see the best of them facing off at Einstein (the much-better-than-OK corral) to see who is quickest on the autonomous draw. The teams that get there will be quite experienced at developing effective, reliable, AND safe robots. 
In Semifinal 3 at the Silicon Valley Regional, part of 4486’s canburglar caught onto a canburglar ‘net’ of 2485 on the opposing alliance and tossed it up into the air, before it landed next to the alliance station wall on the field. While it was wild to watch, it wouldn’t have been too safe if it had flown off in a different direction and landed outside of the field.
It occurs at 2:10:36 here: http://new.livestream.com/accounts/12224997/events/3935043
Going as far as safety is concerned I was my teams photographer last year with Arial Assist and in one of the matches I got a ball to the face and my camera hit me in the face… I wasn’t injured but it still shows that every game has some element that is dangerous
Seeing more safe canburglars at Bedford has eased my concern a little bit.
My guess is that can burglars will get about 20% faster by the end of the season, and I think this can be accomplished with little to no stored energy, making them much safer than the giant hair-trigger mousetraps I was worried about before.
They will be much faster than that, teams will be pushing the limits of what is possible with the strength of materials available to us.
How fast the fastest canburglars get will be determined largely by how quickly they can release massive amounts of stored energy.
This is a dangerous challenge. The GDC designed it to be an incredibly dangerous challenge. (I ask myself again, why?) Teams that intend to go head-to-head on Einstein have exactly zero reason to stop at ~20% faster, and they certainly have no reason not to store energy. This is essentially an arms race; the public time to beat is already like 0.25s. Beyond that, it’s mostly a hidden war, but I’ve inspected (and reffed next to) several stored energy grabbers thus far.
But at a certain point it’s useless to go faster. You have to grab them and get them off the step, or block the other grabber before the opponent can latch on. Once they latch on, it’s a tug-of-war/ lockdown.
This has been covered countless times already, all you have to do is get to the hole first. It’s not hard to stop the other team once you’re there.