Our team competed in a regional in Rolling Meadows, IL on Saturday (Dec. 5th) and we had negative experience with a team pinning our bot against our partner that was against a field element. With this one move, he was able to disable both of our bots. The Ref’s didn’t call it because the rule book states the robot must be pinned against a field element and they also felt we had an escape path. What they couldn’t see was that the two outer bots were angled and caught our front end on both sides. Our driver tried desperately to get out of the situation, burning out our drive train motors in the process.
We believe this team is exploiting a loop-hole in the game rules and would like to petition you to consider amending the rules to deter teams from pinning of all sorts. Perhaps make the bots field elements themselves. This was a strategy used by the other team, not an accidental occurrence. We saw this team do this on at least two other occasions – once was in the finals and their alliance partner was the bot on one end of the “sandwich”. We understand the referee’s ruling since they are carrying out what is written in the rules. We feel the rules should be modified to prevent this in the future.
We were held in place far longer than 5 seconds during this instance and they never were told to back away. I do have video of the one match where they pinned us against our partner who was against a field element which I’d be happy to share.
Thank you for your consideration.
Dawn