I'll give a little bit of the background here, since our team was responsible for 2 of the times that this happened at Wisconsin this weekend (including against 3692, 4212, and 3734 in the quarterfinals).
As noted
with this picture, we played qualification match 65 against team 4212 and knew we were going to get smoked if we didn't stop their full court shooter. 71 and 167 helped 3734 add an 84" blocker to their robot before that match and got it re-inspected. I wasn't there in person but I heard there was a lengthy discussion as to the legality of the mechanism, and many of the robot inspectors at the event got involved in the inspection process. It was initially ruled legal but that any modification like this would have to be permanent (i.e. 3734 couldn't remove the blocker in future matches), but this was corrected sometime later and the blocker was ruled as a reconfigurable mechanism.
When we got picked by the #8 alliance and knew we were facing 4212 again we opted to do the same thing, this time adding an 84" blocker to 1781. Less weight to work with and some drivetrain issues meant it didn't work out as well as Friday's blocker did but it was still our best shot at advancing in eliminations since we knew we didn't have the firepower to outscore 4212.
In both cases the robots that had blockers added to them were under the weight limit and within the height rules with the mechanism added. I believe neither one had to remove any components to stay within the weight restrictions which makes the blockers reconfigurable mechanisms that could be added/removed at will.
I see the potential rub in the interpretation of "during the entire competition event", but if this was taken to literally mean no changes after initial inspection then a team could not make any repairs or improvements once they pass inspection. If you had a broken shooter Friday morning, you would just have to live with your broken shooter the rest of competition. Similarly if something failed that could not be replaced like for like (say a weld on a frame) then the team would have to remain broken the remainder of the event. This is obviously not how FIRST has ruled in the past (how many times have you seen teams "get things working" Saturday morning?), and I hope they won't ever rule this way or we might see a mass defection to the SECOND Robotics Competition.
In the 2 cases we were involved in the robots in question could pass inspection with or without the blocker mechanism attached. Here's something I'm less sure of; if the robots in question had to remove something in order to have enough weight for the blocker (say a broken shooter), are they violating R05 since weight is determined for all mechanisms on the robot in all possible configurations? Are they okay if they never use that part again (a "permanent" change)? What determines when mechanisms are considered reconfigurable and thus R05 matters?
Quote:
R05
The ROBOT weight may not exceed 120 lbs. When determining weight, the basic ROBOT structure and all elements of all additional MECHANISMS that might be used in different configurations of the ROBOT shall be weighed together.
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