Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

You are dead wrong. The rule is intended to prevent us from doing exactly what you suggest, and to encourage us to be proactive thinkers. We need to make choices as to what we will bring, or manufacture, or buy, based on our best understanding of the game and what our robots' weaknesses are. What you are planning on doing is (I repeat) CHEATING. Don't do it.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Not disagreeing with you but you don't get to define the intent of the rule. The GDC (rule updates, Q&A) and their delegates (LRI, Head Ref, etc.) do.

If anything, the problem with the "practice bot in trailer" might be the addition of "static" to the rule.

2014:

2013:

...

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

I agree with this, by bringing in the parts one at a time when needed your 45 lbs is no longer static, its dynamic. I believe by adding the term static this strategy is now illegal.

...

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

How can you argue that having access to 120lbs of fabricated items is not against the rule below?

At an Event, Teams may have access to a static set of FABRICATED ITEMS that shall not exceed 45 lbs.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Why doesn't someone just post a question to QA, rather than arguing about it?

Edit: Someone already submitted one that would seem to apply: Q416.

Q. Can we bring an old robot to the competition for the purposes of using it to supplement our Chairman's Award presentation and not have the weight count against our team's 45 lb withholding allowance?
FRC0340 on 2014-02-25 | 1 Followers
A. These items would count towards the 45 lb limit in R18.

At least by implication, ALL robot parts brought to the competition, even if they never enter the arena, count towards the 45 pounds, even if they were made in a previous year and couldn't be legally installed on your robot.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

I had actually not noticed that particular rule before.


I will say though it is a very popular strategy which I doubt will be ceased this year by teams I see doing this year after year.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

This is the core of why bringing a practice bot and stripping off parts is illegal.

The rule says: At an Event, Teams may have access to a static set of FABRICATED ITEMS that shall not exceed 45 lbs.

Emphasis mine.

If you can go to your trailer and get a part from a practice bot, that's access. If you have access, or potential access, to more than 45lbs worth of parts you are in violation of the rule.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

First of all the rules state 1 robot is allowed at an event. Having another robot onsite is not legal. If the issue is if the parking lot is onsite then I would say if at the venue then it is on site.

The next issue is that you are not allowed to work on the robot or parts outside of the pit area during an event. If you are taking taking parts off a spare robot then in my opinion you are working on them outside of the pits.

In my opinion and not the final say from FIRST (as suggested, ask in Q&A) and as an Inspector and LRI I would not allow it.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

The rules really don't address where you keep your practice bot other than not at the competition. You can go & harvest COTS parts off of it to your hearts delight. Just as long as they still meet the definition of COTs when they come into the competition.

Aside from the static 45 lb allowance, the manufactured parts on the robot are off limits just the same as anything manufactured in your hotel room, Build site whatever. Which means any manufactured items should be pulled before the competition, not selected from a larger set of parts during the competition. As with many things in First you are on your honor to follow the rules.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Guys - while some may not like it, it is clearly against the rules to use a practice robot for spare parts in this manner. In Palmetto our LRI instructed us to weigh any team's withholding allowance that we deemed to appear potentially exceeding the 45# limit...kind of hard to verify if it is in the trailer or the hotel.

Going to "practicality" now, however - it is obviously difficult to verify what goes in and out of the venue (unless it is particularly large) so this requires teams to employ the honor system...and with the degree of misinterpretation shown in this thread I fear there will be a lot of violation going on.

Follow the rules - plan a STATIC set of fabricated/modified/altered/assembled parts that is less than 45# and bring that set of parts in with you at registration to show inspectors (and be weighed by inspectors if requested). Anything COTS from the practice robot that you want to use have disassembled before the event and bring it with your extras. Leave everything else at home.

I'd love to hear Al comment....

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

This brings up an interesting question:

Our 2nd event is 2-3 miles away from our working facility. Does that mean every single part in our facility counts to the 45 lb limit, since we have access to it during the competition?

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Normally, I despise rules that cannot be enforced consistently. Where I make exceptions are Bagging the Robot, and the withholding allowance. While both are nearly impossible to enforce, they are in place to ensure that all teams at the event are playing by the same rules.

All teams get 1 robot and 45 pounds of fabricated spare parts for each event.

Other rules are in place to encourage fair play. For example
T11
At events, Teams may only produce FABRICATED ITEMS in the pit areas or provided machine shops, as defined in the Administrative Manual, Section 4.8: The Pit.

This means that if your team has access to machine shop within driving distance that other teams do not have then T11 eliminates that advantage.

A practice robot in the trailer in the parking lot is access to more than 45 pounds of parts and therefor illegal. No need for the Q & A here.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Yes.

Do all of your competitors have the same ability? Otherwise it gives you an exceedingly unfair advantage. This is also why the rules prohibit working on any robot parts outside of the pit area.