Quote:
Originally Posted by Jared
One team will come up with a clever way to keep the breaker's temperature super cold for the duration of the match, then FIRST will likely ban these sorts of modifications. In my opinion, the freeze spray is totally illegal from two rules. FIRST knows that teams are doing this, and although they haven't said anything about it last season, I wouldn't be too surprised to see an addition disallowing methods to change the temperature of breakers.
The first is G3. Deliberately freezing a safety device so it does not operate as intended seems like it may qualify as an unsafe modification in the eyes of some inspectors. It also seems to violate R64, because it can easily be considered to be tampering, modifying, or adjusting. It's clear that they don't want you changing the "performance and specifications of the device".
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What is tampering, modifying or adjusting about it? The breaker spec sheet lists it's operation characteristics to -50F, and that it's designed to operate down to -25F. It is still operating completely within its design, performance and specifications. Freezing the breaker does not physically change the way it works, it just changes the operating temperature at the start of the match. There's nothing inherently unsafe about operating the breaker within it's design range.
I personally would not want to rely on freezing my breaker as a primary method to keep my robot alive during a match, but under previous FIRST rules, I don't believe it was illegal.