Quote:
Originally Posted by GeeTwo
Got no CNC. Got no manual mill. Got no plasma or laser cutter. Got no router. Got no sheet metal sponsor. Pocketing to us means a drill press or jig saw, or worse. Your 3-4 minutes would take us 3-4 days or more. You're on a different plane of existence from most of FRC.
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Well you wouldn't be able to make a gearbox plate to pocket, without a mill, so this is kind of an apples and oranges comparison.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GeeTwo
This "makes no sense whatsoever" makes no sense whatsoever. If all goes well, there never was meterial outside of the bounding box of the part. However, every bit of material that was originally inside the bounding box of the part but cut away (i.e. in a pocket) is thrown away (or hopefully recycled, especially if aluminum). I certainly hope you don't discount the material originally in the pockets from your BoM; that would have violated the last several years of rules!
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Unless you only make plates with right angles you're going to have material outside the bounding box of the part. It's a very loaded statement to say "if all goes well, you have no material outside the bounding box". Maybe that's true if your team's goal is to never make a non orthogonal part. That is not the case for many teams in FRC.
You also may consider it semantics, but "contouring" is absolutely different than pocketing and contouring is not under discussion here. Furthermore, teams can and do just bandsaw/belt sand the outer contour of their gearbox to reduce weight or provide clearance for other features of the robot.
Yes, material inside the bounding box of the part that you pocket out is thrown out...but MrForbes is making it sound like it's "extra" material that you didn't have to buy and you could have purchased a smaller piece and saved money. It's metal you already bought. It's metal that cannot be used for anything else. His statement makes absolutely no sense in that context.
Your last point is seemingly irrelevant...unless you're suggesting that you think 254 might be violating the rules. We are well aware of how the BOM works.