[KenWittlief]

I searched the entire set of documents FIRST gave us and the word 'vacuum' does NOT appear in any of them

creating a vacuum to pick up a ball really has nothing to do with the pnuematics FIRST supplies - the pnuematics are designed to be linear actuators to move structural components

vacuum would be used in this game to grab or attach to a ball or platform

I want to ask FIRST directly on the Q&A website about this. The robot rules say we cannot use anything else to compress air, except the compressor, but it says nothing about creating a vacuum.

There are commerical off the shelf devices that will generate a vacuum, that we could power with one of the motors in the kit of parts - as soon as I can get my hands on our teams Q&A password I will ask this question directly

"can we use commerical off the shelf devices to create a vacuum, if they are powered by one of the motors supplied in the kit of parts?"

I KNOW these were not allowed last year, but this is not last year - the rules do change from year to year, just as the game itself changes. Our team has gotten burned before for 'living in the past' - not realizing an old rule had been done away with, and we missed opportunities.