[Joe Johnson]

As to why the limit was set where it was, I think that the limit was made up by folks without real team experience.

As to storing enery using a constant force spring, this too is limited to 20 ft-lbs (per mechanism if you read the FIRST forums, not per spring).

To understand just how low this amount of enery is, think of this.

The Chiaphua motor has a peak power output of about 300 Watts. This is 300 Joules per Second. A Joule is a N-m. The conversion from ft-lbs to N-m is 1.4 (approx). So... 20 ft-lbs is approx 30 N-m or (a.k.a. Joules).

So... the amount of energy that is allowed to be stored in a spring is the amount of work that at Chiaphua motor can do is 1/10th of a second!

Think about it this way. In short bursts, the battery can provide 200 Amps at approx. 10 Volts. This works out to an astounding 2000Watts. So...

The amount of energy that can be legally stored in a spring can be provided by the battery in 15 milliseconds (1/65th of a second)!

This is obsurdly low in my opinion.

But... ...I can live with it if you can...

Joe J.