[Matt C]

You could make covers out of some other material that are functionally the same and use these lexan panels as replacement parts. I am sure that because these lexan panels have already been fabricated, that they would be legal replacement parts. As long as you adhere to the INTENT of the rules there should not be any issues.

REPLACEMENT PARTS – A COMPONENT or MECHANISM constructed as a functional duplicate of
an existing part of the ROBOT, for the purpose of replacing a broken or defective part. REPLACEMENT
PARTS may be either COTS items or FABRICATED ITEMS. They must be functionally identical to the
original part but can be modified to provide more robust performance of the function.
 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.

<R31> At the competitions: Teams are allowed to repair, modify or upgrade their competition
ROBOT while participating in a competition event. To support this, teams may bring
SPARE, REPLACEMENT and UPGRADE PARTS and COTS items to the competitions
(within the limits specified in Rules <R40> and <R41>).

<R41> Teams may bring a maximum of 25 pounds of custom FABRICATED ITEMS (SPARE
PARTS, REPLACEMENT PARTS, and/or UPGRADE PARTS) to each competition event to
be used to repair and/or upgrade their ROBOT at the competition site. All other
FABRICATED ITEMS to be used on the ROBOT during the competition shall arrive at the
competition venue packed in the shipping crate with the ROBOT.

<R29> During the “FIX-IT WINDOWS” following the shipment of the ROBOT: During this period,
all teams may utilize up to 10 hours of FIX-IT-WINDOWS to manufacture SPARE and
REPLACEMENT PARTS and develop software for their ROBOT at their home facility.
Fabrication of UPGRADE PARTS is not permitted during this period. The timing of these
“FIX-IT WINDOWS” is at the discretion of the team. However, the total time utilized as FIXIT
WINDOWS during this period must not exceed 10 hours, and all work must be completed
by 5:00pm on the Saturday following the ROBOT shipment deadline. Teams may
manufacture all the SPARE and REPLACEMENT parts they want, but the amount of parts
they can bring to a competition event is limited (as specified in Rule <R41>).

Again, this is assuming that the panels require NO ADDITIONAL WORK to be a functional part of the robot. Of course, I would probably get the panels back, take measurements of the areas to make stickers for, then ship them with the robot if I could.