Re: Removing the feeder stations slides
 

An official has already be made about NO changes to field in a Q&A so time ago.

I had to find it and here it is..

Game - The Arena » The ARENA » The PYRAMIDS
Q356 Q. Can you confirm that the orientation of the crossbar in the pyramid cap relative to the field as shown in figure 2-2, will be the orientation we can expect at all Ultimate Ascent competitions?
FRC2935 on 2013-01-28 | 4 Followers
A. The FIELD will be laid out in accordance with official FIRST drawings, which are visualized in Section 2 - The ARENA.


Even though the question was about just one part of the field the answer is for the entire field. So, It seem very clear to me that the covers must remain in place.

Re: Removing the feeder stations slides
 

For what it's worth, the covers seemed to fit differently (damaged?)/crushed/bent/lower even early Day 1 at NYC than my memories of Horsham last weekend. (Granted, I didn't pay as much attention at Horsham, and stacking was banned.)

Even if Q356 spoke to the issue--intrinsically it only speaks to how FIRST will present it, not what teams can do to it--it's possible they were actually out of spec and thus violated A356. I don't know. It was good enough for the powers that be (don't know who all/how high up) to exercise some leeway in a ruling intended to facilitate gameplay as they believe it was intended. I'd let Manchester sort it out from here, particularly since they pulled down the new Q&A.


Also for what it's worth and as NYC teams can explain, removing the cover has the downside of significantly increasing your risk for committing a G37.