[Madison]

Originally Posted by Rick Tyler

Cool. So, if you don't mind my asking, what are you using for belts?

I'd been planning for 1/4" round urethane belting -- McMaster-Carr part 59725K704 -- but the Senate may overturn my veto of automotive V-belts.

Originally Posted by Deep Water

It is my understanding that the pictured design would not pass rule R4:

Thanks for the head's up, Chuck. I hadn't interpreted that rule as anything other than a way to discourage teams from engaging in questionable offensive and defensive tactics. It will be easy enough for us to square off the lowest part of the hopper so as to keep it vertical while maintaing the curved profile we need to load balls into the conveyor, however we had no considered that a gravity-fed ramp to the corner goals would also be construed as a wedge.

I'm not certain, even now, that such a ramp would be prohibited by this rule. The last sentence reads, "If a mechanism or an appendage (a ball harvester, for example) becomes a wedge that interferes with other robots, penalties, disabling, or disqualification can occur depending on the severity of the infraction," suggesting that a functional mechanism outside the initial constraints is not considered a wedge (if more than 10 degrees off vertical) by default. Instead, they've used the word "becomes," which implies that it would be okay to use for its intended purpose alone.

I'm interested to read some others' interpretation of how we may be affected by that rule -- particularly anyone who will be an inspector or referee in Portland.