[Mike Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Anupam Goli

Might as well ask this in the thread:

Would a creative way of displaying Team Number count towards your weight allowance? Per the manual,

Team numbers aren't really a mechanism, so I'm thinking we don't need to weigh those with the robot. However, the manual explicitly states that bumpers count towards weight this year, leading me to believe that any creative solution to numbering our robot may end up counting against our weight budget...

I'll be sure to ask in the Q&A, but I'd like to hear some opinions and thoughts on this.

The intent behind this rule is that you can't build two drastically different mechanisms that each bring your robots weight to 120 lbs and swap them between matches to change your strategy. This rule says that if you want to swap them you can, but they both count towards robot weight even if they don't go on the field. Otherwise nothing stops me from building two robots and picking the one I want to field each match.

Functionally equivalent replacement parts with different cosmetic appearance don't violate this rule. For example in 2010 the killer bees swapped signs on the bottom of their robot every time they hung, but they didn't have to weigh in with ALL of those signs.

The sign weight counts towards your 120 lbs, but it doesn't count if it's not going on the field. Feel free to change your sign every match if you'd like.