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Originally Posted by Tristan Lall
Having dealt with the chaos the pneumatics cause at inspection time, I think there's a need for some simplification of the rules.
Rickertsen2 pointed out that there are a lot of other pneumatic devices that are safe, cost-effective, widely available and useful. As simple a measure as permitting anything from within the Bimba general catalogue would allow for a substantial variety of new capabilities for the robots. On the other hand, if FIRST tends toward Dave's opinion that sometimes there is too much variety in the types of off-the-shelf mechanisms permitted, it would be a simple matter to scale down the rule to permit "anything from pages [some range] of the 2005 Bimba catalogue". In either event, the arcane, arbitrary pneumatics rules need some readjustment in order to ease the burden on teams and officials alike.
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On the other hand I don't feel like the inspectors should have to memorize multiple pages of the catalog to be able to tell whether or not a cylinder has been modified. Modification of any actuator increases the risk of failure. Failure can have dramatic consequenses and lead to injury or death. There was at least one case I know of where a team modified a clinder in a way that was potentially hazardous. It made it through two inspections before being caught precisely because the next inspector down the line was intimately familiar with the cylinders and what they should look like. The modification was done so well that it looke like the cylinder belonged that way.
By limiting the types of cylinders then people who are not pnuematics experts have some chance of catching these things. But then I'm from the Dave Larery school of thought.
BTW I do think the rule about having to use the FIRST pnuematic tubing is a little rediculous. I'd say any tube or fitting with the required pressure rating should be OK. One team managed to make their own coiled tube by heating the kit tube. You think that didn't void the rating? but it was technically legal even though it would have been better for them to use a tube that was made that way and wasn't.