[matthew_martin]

I think that if your team uses a pneumatic system as your firing method, you should be safe of this rule. I'm not entirely sure, but since there is a solenoid going to your cylinders, as long as your cylinders are not compressed (i.e. because of test firing your robot before your match), none, or at least VERY little energy is "stored." I think this rule was mainly aimed at protecting teams using a Tension-Based firing mechanism. I know when my team was prototyping a tension launcher, we called it "The Machine of Death" just because of how dangerous it was to be around it... In a tension based setup, when the firing arm is loaded, all of the energy is stored, but in Pneumatics, generally it isn't.

There's my 2¢. I'm not sure if this is true, but I hope it helps.