As a long-time mentor, I felt it was time to be a first-time inspector at Mt Olive last weekend.
One rookie team has bumpers with 5" long elements next to their ball intake, which unfortunately gave them a competitive advantage. The nearest veteran team was MORT team 11, so I (literally) grabbed a MORT kid, marched him over to the robot, explained the problem, and told him "Please get this fixed for them". He grabbed some Team 75 folks passing by and they went at it, rebuilding two sets of bumpers in under 30 minutes. This rookie team couldn't believe it, and they were so happy they could compete. (They ended up winning an award, too).
Another much older team shows up Saturday morning late, with a robot that looked like it was designed without any regard whatsoever for the rulebook. The compressor was connected directly to the solenoid valve - no safety shutoff, no switch, no nothing.
How did they pass inspection at their previous event? Also, their bumpers were (literally) touching the ground. sigh. A mentor from Team 75 was passing by, and I grabbed him (I seem to have a problem with that) and asked if he could help them pass inspection. I mentioned this in another thread, but a sea of red and black shirts descended upon this robot like a plague of locusts. Although this was the last robot to pass inspection, they missed only 2 matches.
Then there were the heartfelt thanks from several of the teams that I inspected and had to fail because of one or another rule. You'd think they'd be angry with me, but their honest and heartfelt thanks says different. THAT is what keeps me going in FRC.
