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Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz
Since this is a hypothetical case, I guess it is OK to read into the description. I agree that an identical part made out of different material is OK under the component definitions in Sec 5.2...
"• Example 1: A lever arm made of lexan on your robot breaks. You manufacture a REPLACEMENT PART made of aluminum plate, using the design drawings of the original. As the new part provides the same function as the broken part, the new part is a valid REPLACEMENT PART."
I made the assumption that an arm that was suddenly lighter and stronger was a redesign not merely new material. Now granted, a team that makes a modified part at competition, no matter how awful can, in the fixit window, remake the part correctly in their shop. Theoretically, that team could manufacture an arm out of cardboard anytime before close of pits on Saturday, and remake the part out of titanium in the fixit window and still be legal, right? It is functionally identical to a part legally made during competition but is now an upgrade part since it is a new and better material. This is one of those rules that suffers from lack of knowledge of intent. What were the rules makers intending when this rule was written?
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I think you'd have a rough time arguing that a cardboard arm is functionally equivalent to a titanium one.... The original part has to be functional in the first place. At any rate, I'm interested in the direction this YMTC goes, as it's not a hypothetical for our team. We're in pretty much this exact situation, as we had to bring our arm home to make some fixes in the FIW and made a slight upgrade in the process. I will be dismayed if we have to disassemble and downgrade to our original system.