Still don't understand why we can't snag spinners

[daveimi]

I understand that if I drove round the arena unravelling duct tape as I went then it would create boring matches and be unfair. However, the last time I asked this I don't feel as though I got a legitimate answer other than "entanglement is banned in the rules".

I'm not talking about stopping robots running round the arena, just trying to come up with a solution to the actual blade or disk of a spinner. I noticed at the weekend that as soon as a cable got caught up in a blade, it just snagged and stopped. So in terms of this being an engineering sport and trying to promote ingenuity and a variety of designs, why would I not be allowed to wrap my robot in cables? It's then up to those that build the big power spinners to counter with new blade designs with low profile bearings and so forth to not get wrapped up?

At the minute it feels as though the rule set gives credence to more and more powerful spinners, and that any other type of robot is handicapped to defend against it. Almost like the field being full of flame throwers and then telling everyone they can only use wood to build a robot. I don't want us to be without spinners, I just want the rule set straightening out to say that you cannot stop translational movement round the arena by entanglement, but that using it as a form of permanently fixed armour to resist spinning weapons is OK. I can see absolutely no reason why we shouldn't be able to use various ideas to snag blades.