Are we allowed to use helium?
 

My team wants to use helium during competition. We understand that we are not allowed to bring a helium tank to the site, but are we allowed to use helium during matches in competition?

Re: Are we allowed to use helium?
 

I can't imagine what for...?

Re: Are we allowed to use helium?
 

Might be the classic "helium-filled frame" trick. Or they might be trying to affect the flight of frisbees.

If you can't bring a helium tank to the site, how on earth are you going to use helium in matches?

Re: Are we allowed to use helium?
 

They will sound pretty funny shouting instructions to each other:D

Re: Are we allowed to use helium?
 

Tie a ton (not literally) of balloons to your robot before you get it weighed.

Last time I saw the 'no lighter than air gasses' rule was 2010 so I suppose it would be legal.

However, it wouldn't help as the dictionary definition of weight "A body's relative mass or the quantity of matter contained by it, giving rise to a downward force; the heaviness of a person or thing." would not change no matter how much buoyant force you had lifting it. The apparent weight would; the actual weight wouldn't.

Re: Are we allowed to use helium?
 

Balloons to block shots?

Re: Are we allowed to use helium?
 

...and people thought 1114's climb was fast. ;)

Re: Are we allowed to use helium?
 

I had this idea and was overruled by the kids on the team. We looked at the pneumatics rules and didn't see a problem with it, other than psi. Party City has Hello Kitty balloons really cheap, I wanted a few to surprise the tall full court shooters...maybe another year lol

Re: Are we allowed to use helium?
 

Well I don't wish to specify our objectives with helium. So to my understanding we have the right to use helium in our robot.

Re: Are we allowed to use helium?
 

Best place to get an official answer is the Q&A. Any answer you get here means absolutely nothing.

Re: Are we allowed to use helium?
 

The robot's true mass is not measured during inspection. The official method of weighing an FRC robot uses a force-sensing scale, so the property that matters is what you're calling the "apparent weight".

The answer to such a general question is likely to be something like this:

There are no rules specifically prohibiting helium or other nontoxic gases. However, the robot must still obey all rules.

Re: Are we allowed to use helium?
 

It might be able to ruled out under the "unsafe materials" rule, as it is an asphyxiant... but then again most things will suffocate you if you breathe in too much aside from air :)

Re: Are we allowed to use helium?
 

"We cannot comment on individual robotic designs"

Re: Are we allowed to use helium?
 

It would be better for everyone if you just told us. I can almost guarantee you didn't stumble on some huge game-changing secret that no one else figured out. There's no need to keep secrets here, if you're obscuring something that's potentially illegal you're only hurting yourself.

Regardless, there are several ways that helium would be illegal to have on a robot. Is helium doing work (in the physics sense)? Then it could be argued that helium is a violation of R37:

It looks like part A is a potential loophole, except that all compressed air must come from an FRC legal compressor, which just uses air from the surrounding atmosphere and not from a particular source.

In addition, almost any component involving helium would be a pneumatic component by definition. There are many pneumatic rules, but all require the use of unmodified OTS components and none of the rules allow you to use helium to fill tanks instead of normal compressed air.

Re: Are we allowed to use helium?
 

You could use helium as the working fluid in your FRC-legal pneumatics system by connecting a helium source to the air compressor's inlet port. You would need to regulate your helium source to approximately 1 atm, which is important because the inlet side of the compressor is not rated for pressure. Of course, you could only do this when pre-charging your pneumatics in the pit-- you couldn't do it on the field.

EDIT: Also, compressing helium is harder to do than compressing air. You'll want to operate the compressor at a lower duty cycle to compensate.