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Re: pre-charged Pneumatics
Another real-world example to put to the test. A team is using surgical tubing to provide all the force for their kicker - thus, when "charged", there is a lot of stored energy in the tubing. To "charge" the kicker, they use a cam driven by a motor. The assumption here is the cam is set up such that it can stop in a "fully charged" state, and by turning as little as a few degrees provide a rather explosive discharge of energy through the kicker - requiring another full revolution to become fully charged again. Note that for the kicker to be "fully charged", the robot does not need to be powered on, assuming the cam is difficult/impossible to back drive.
During play, the expectation would be that a kick would simply be a full revolution of the cam - go from fully charged, to kicking, to fully charged again. In the "default state", the code would always return it to fully charged, and within the frame perimeter, to avoid penalties and the yellow card mentioned for the 2-second rule. This is a relatively stable system - the kicker can return inside the frame quickly, and while not in use will remain there should power be lost on the robot. (of course, if power is lost the the half second immediately following a discharge, the kicker may remain outside the frame, but this would be a rather exceptional circumstance)
To be in compliance with the rules, such a robot would have to arrive on the field "fully charged" - carrying it as such would not be safe without redundant safety measures to ensure it couldn't fire if the cam was jostled too much, and hopefully EVERY team with such a system would have safety devices in place.
For inspection, the sizing portion would have to be done in this "fully charged" configuration. During such an inspection, would the inspectors permit (or hopefully require) the safety mechanisms to be in place during sizing? Would they allow them to be removed after the robot was placed on the scale (but before the weight reading was taken)? Depending on robot design, such safety mechanisms may have to be fairly significant (fairly large weight) if, for example, a simple pin (fairly lightweight) can't be used due to access restrictions from other parts. The addition of a single pound of safety equipment on the robot may be enough to put teams over the limit.
Please note - the concern here isn't over safety (the assumption is all proper actions have been taken to ensure the device is safe when being handled), it's not over penalties or the 2-second rule, and it's not over the actual operation of the robot on the field. It is simply in ensure that teams can be safely inspected while having a consistent understanding of what can and cannot be done while weighing and sizing the robot.
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