After a quick review of the manual, I'm inclined to say that locking gas springs are legal. I just wanted to poll the forum before we started sinking a lot of effort into the idea.
We used a gas spring in our 2016 robot to balance the (long) intake / scaling arm. We're hoping to improve the setup by replacing the gas spring with a locking version (unlocked with an air cylinder pulling the remote release) to hold the arm angle without motor current.
These are the types of products:
http://www.mcmaster.com/#gas-springs/=131wqob
http://www.geminigassprings.com/inde...hk=1&Itemid=12
http://www.bansbach.com/index.php/en...elease-systems