[Matt H.]

Originally Posted by ALIBI

Combine these with the following:

<R10> Robots entered into the 2008 FIRST Robotics Competition shall be fabricated and/or assembled from COMPONENTS, MECHANISMS and COTS items that are constructed from:

Items provided in the FIRST-supplied Kit Of Parts (or their exact REPLACEMENT PART)

Allowed additional parts and materials as defined in the rules, and in quantities consistent with the Budget Constraint rules (found in Section 8.3.3).

And:

MECHANISM – A COTS or custom assembly of COMPONENTS that provide specific functionality on the ROBOT. A MECHANISM can be disassembled (and then reassembled) into individual COMPONENTS without damage to the parts.

Does it say anywhere that you are not allowed to have two distinct drivetrain MECHANISMS?

To answer your question:

Each team will be permitted one and only one chassis consisting of a complete drivetrain, battery mount, RC and the manditory electrical components which will remain as one unit throughout and entire season without changes or modifications (changes to correct rule deficiencies will be permitted). This will be considered to be the ROBOT. In addition, teams will be permitted to add COMPONENTS, MECHANSIMS and COTS as well as any other required items (i.e. flag holder, standard bumpers, team number, etc.) to the ROBOT to meet the objectives for game play.

My overall point here, your two quotes along with <R10> and the definition of MECHANISM seem to support letting Team 1519 do what they tried to do. In order to outlaw their soluiton, you would need to add a new definition.

You are in essence defining a robot as a drive base then. Last year a team simply used ramps which folded out at the beginning of the match (no drive base) and were allowed to compete--should this not be allowed?