This is just a quick message to all teams this year, passing inspection with illegal parts will be MUCH harder than in the past as they have asked the engineers to start doing tech inspections at events their team is not participating in. So please, don't use illegal motors or violate rules without a VERY good explanation. Telling the inspector that the van door motor is a fisher price won't fly this up coming season and saying you didn't know it wasn't legal won't work either. (Although we could have used 10 BOSCH motors last year and know one would have known, our inspector didn't even know the difference between the different motors)

Know the rules, and follow the rules, if you have a question or something that is in the gray area, get an official ruling from FIRST, first before using it. At an event is the wrong time to be pleading your case for something you think should be legal even though it isn't.

B.T.W. Myself & Brian Musser will be tech inspecting at the Western MI reigonal.

That's a really good idea. At some of the regionals we'd get judges that were extremely unfamiliar with the control system and the kit of parts. I hope they zero their scales well too, at least to where they're all the same reading.

There has always been some heated discussion as to the use of modified parts and trying to slip things in past the inspectors. I personally find that part of the fun and learning in this project is keeping to the rules as close as possible. For one it stimulates creativity to come up with a solution that fits the rules and it serves to level the playing field.(one of my personal favorites. I love when rookie teams, teams with limited resources and volunteers, or teams with no engineering backup can make it to the finals and perform.) It also gives us a yardstick to judge each other's design against.
As I have said many times, I would like the inspectors to perform some basic electrical checks as well. A simple ohmmeter check from both battery terminals to various chassis points, insulated battery terminals, good battery mounting, etc. I have seen inspectors reject a robot for sharp edges but never looked at exposed high current wiring.
Happy Holidays All Only 14 days to kickoff.

That's a good idea.

Sorry for my past comment, I'm a rookie, and wasn't aware of inspections and things like that. Don't expect our team to cheat like that. (Or anyway).

Hey AJ,
Ya gotta ask to learn. Besides we like all the MN teams, we have relatives in Minnetonka!

Modifying the motors is a no-no, but you can modify the gearboxes. We always opened up the drill moto gearboxes and locked the little high/low gizmo in place. Speaking of Moto mountings, I remember us getting a certificate for putting up a model of our right angle motor mounts on the sharing first site. Whatever happened to that site, I can't find any url or reference to it anywhere.

Heh, we are the only Minnesota team. ;) We're the state champions!

Heat sinks
 

With all this talk of heat sinks I though I should mention what 151 is doing this year. We took some of last years drill( assuming they will be the same thing this year), and put the motor on a lathe and slowly made the back of the motor perfectly round we then made a heat sink to fit perfectly. then just above the heat sink we attached small muffin fans for extra cooling. We will not be using this motor on this years robot nor will we use the heat sink, (we have strict rules on using anything made outside the six weeks) We have read the rules carefully and belive that this is well with in the rules.

Re: Heat sinks
 

I'm afraid I'm not sure what you mean by making the back of the motor perfectly round. What do you mean by back of the motor, the rear face or the circumference on the rear end of the motor? Also, how wide did you make the heatsink and how is it attached?

Re: Re: Heat sinks
 

What I meant was the rear circumference of the motor, sorry for not explaining it better, the heatsink is about half an inch wide and we attaced it with small hardware and some small dowels that somehow attached to the motor,<---- I'll check on that and get back to you with a picture.

For any of the new teams:

Assuming the rules stay similar to last year regarding extruded aluminum, these worked fantastic and are ultra-light they fit the FP & Drills from last year

http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXTG84&P=7

And, they look extremely cool

About the heatsinks, could someone please tell me how they were legal last year. Which part of the Additional Hardware List did they fall under?

I'm pretty sure it was under the "extruded aluminum, 2"x3" cross section"

Nate is correct. Nothing in the rules said anything about it having to be a "standard" cross-section. The extrusion just had to fit into a 2"x3" hole. You could have even used a solid 2x3 if it was extruded, and you could afford the weight.

I have a related question about motor modification. It doesn't involve FIRST, but I have a motor at home in an air compressor that I'm trying to get more power out of. With my limited knowledge of motors, it would seem to me that I could rap some extra copper wire around the coils, and this would do the trick. But that's an educated guess with my again, limited knowledge of motors.