Quote Originally Posted by jonny
The requirement of a link on a 3lb robot seems pretty stupid to me.
I disagree. As long as the measure is not incredibly over the top, then nothing's stupid when it comes to dealing with safety. Not just for spinners either. My BW servo-flipper has the battery pack under the lifting arm and if I was to power up the robot just by plugging the battery pack in, I would have to lift the flipper arm. This means that the flipper could potentially close in on my fingers when I power up, and considering the servo has 20kg/cm torque, it wouldn't be a painless experience.
Having done a spin-up test with the spinner I half-made, I wouldn't want to have to reach in and try to unplug a fiddly battery connection if for some reason it went out of control. Much quicker to grab and pull a link that isn't in the line of finger-slicing.

Although the beetle class was added to the rules, I'm not sure if the link and power light sections were updated to accommodate beetleweights. But as far as I'm concerned, links, power lights and failsafes are a requirement, as per the first post in this thread.