[Tom Bottiglieri]

Originally Posted by Dad1279

I'm truly concerned with this attitude in the FIRST community. Some rules are there for safety, others are design constraints. Without climbing into the minds of the GDC, the reason behind an individual rule is unknown. However, teams are given the rulebook as a design constraint. This competition is often compared to a real-live engineering project. Don't design to the specifications, you won't get the job.

The second line of the FRC Inspection Checklist in the Pneumatics section: Compressor - Only one KOP compressor (or equivalent, max 1.05 CFM flow rate) may be used (on or off robot). <R73>

The bottom text of the FRC Inspection Checklist:
We, the Team Mentor and Team Captain, attest by our signing below, that our team’s robot was built after the 2012 Kickoff on January7, 2012 and in accordance with all of the 2012 FRC rules, including all Fabrication Schedule rules. We have conducted our own inspection and determined that our robot satisfies all of the 2012 FRC rules for robot design.


FIRST relies heavily on each team's own honor and moral compass to do what is right. It is up to a team's leaders (student or adult) to take a notification that they have broken a rule and turn it into a moment to demonstrate the principles of sportsmanship and fair play.

I wouldn't be so fast to throw Tristan under the bus. He made absolutely no mention of breaking the rule, but rather just of his opinion (that agrees with that of many) on this seemingly needless rule.