[Ken Leung]

Like Jason said, you should always give yourself some room when you are designing a robot... It NEVER make sense to design a robot that will work exactly according to specs...

You never design a big ball robot that can put up balls exactly to the height of the goals, you always add a little bit height so you can put the ball above the goal and make your drivers' life easier that way... Same thing with the moving goals last year... Even if you know the bottom pipe's diameter, you always design your claw to be a little bigger so you can account for drivers' error.

It is just good practice to design something with a torrence for error, in case something bad happen during the game. Maybe your robot was hitted during the competition, and suddenly grew a quarter of an inch in height... OR maybe something was left on the ground, and suddenly your 14 5/16" robot can't go under the bar with a bolt stuck under your wheel.

Minus half an inch is a small number to work with... And remember, the 1/2" goes the other way too... The bar might be taller then you think.