[Mike Betts]

Both Eric and Al have given you sound advise. I'll take it a bit further...

1. You can bring as much raw, unmodified, COTS material with you as you wish to your event. You are limited to 40 pounds of modified or machined assemblies (this includes items withheld from the robot shipment). Note that the operator interface is not counted in this 40 pound weight allowance.

2. I would contact an area veteran team ASAP. Many veteran mentors will be glad to come to your next meeting and discuss your issues in person. Show them pictures and/or CAD drawings of your robot and plan your attack of the problem.

3. When you get to your regional, bring your robot up to the lead inspector ASAP and ask to weigh your robot. Do this for two reasons. (1) Your school scale may not be accurate with respect to the official event scale. (2) As Al said, the lead inspector can help you get the weight out and/or introduce you to veteran teams who may be willing to assist you.

4. Do not give up! I have seen teams lose 90 pounds (no kidding) on a single Thursday at the competition.

5. Many places to lose weight may not be obvious. As an example, Are you using all of the modules in the cRIO controller? My team pulled 3 modules (we kept the analog in slot 1 and the digital in slot 4) and saved over a pound right there...

Good luck,

Mike