[ChrisH]

According to Update 5 the top 4" of the light must be "exposed".

I attempted to post a question on the FRC (Jive) group asking A) if having the light in a robot with transparent sides was acceptable and B) if it wasn't acceptable would the rule be enforced. Achieving the required exposure was basically going to put us back at square one in terms of frame design and I didn't want to redesign our frame for nothing.

The moderator declined to post my question, probably because of part B. However numerous other people have since suggested the same thing and been told NO. Transparent sides are not acceptable. Even a transparent protective cover is not acceptable.

Exposed means exactly what it says.

A moderator did respond to me personally and say that "any team that does not have it's light exposed will be assessed two minor penalties". As I recall three minor penalties = a DQ. So while you could technically compete, the slightest misbehavior on your part would result in a DQ.

As a team, we decided that in the interests of Gracious Professionalism and because complying with the rules is "the Right Thing To Do" that we would ensure that we met the requirement. We will not try and scrape by or just take our penalty and compete anyway.

We have resolved our issue by figuring out a very elegant retraction mechanism. It kept us from having to redesign our frame. I'm not sure if you can do the same or not, our mechanism depends on a feature of our robot I have not seen discussed here, so I'm keeping quite for now.

Since the response from FIRST was a private message, it was obviously not meant for public consumption. If it was they would have used the FRC group. So I will not post it here without getting clearance from FIRST. But I thought you all should be aware of the major points.

You should also be aware that last fall I volunteered to be a technical judge at one of the competitions. I won't tell you which one, but I will tell you that I will be packing a 6" scale.

Consider yourself warned on this issue....