[savagecreature]

We spoke to a number of people, including a robot inspector for our upcoming regional, and discovered that our trunk latch is indeed not legal.

However, the trunk latch does have a manual latch release (to prevent people from being locked in the trunk), so we asked if we could simply cut the wires and trigger it with a servo. Our inspector directed us to Q288 in the Q&A portion of the FIRST website which indicated that even if the motor was not powered it would still have to conform to the requirements of R29 and R51.

So we have removed the electrical actuation system completely and the latch is now purely mechanical. We intend to trigger it with a HiTech servo from AndyMark or pneumatically.

Thank you again, everyone, for you assistance in figuring this all out.