[Mike Betts]

Originally Posted by Chris_Elston

ROBOT - A FRC ROBOT is a remotely operated vehicle designed and built by a FRC team to perform specific tasks when competing in the 2010 competition “Breakaway.” The ROBOT must include all the basic systems required to be an active participant in the game – power, communications, control, mobility, and actuation. The ROBOT implementation must obviously follow a design approach intended to play the 2010 FRC game (e.g. a box of unassembled parts placed on the FIELD, or a ROBOT designed to play a different game, would not satisfy this definition).

We have to ship a "robot" and the definition of a robot is above. Hope that helps.

Chris,

With all due respect, the withholding allowance, by design, invalidates requirement to ship a "robot" by this definition.

From the blue box of <R27>:

The primary intent of this rule is to allow teams to withhold the ROBOT control system, the OPERATOR CONSOLE, and selected relevant subsystems, and access them after the shipping deadline. This will allow teams to have the maximum time possible prior to each competition event to develop and complete the software for their ROBOT while maximizing the potential capabilities provided by the control system.

By defiition, without a control system, you have no robot. But the intent of <R27> is to withhold the control system.

Here lies the rub...

For a very light robot design, the "selected relevant subsystems" can be all of them.

Going back to the origins of this thread, it is clear to me that shipping the bumpers only is legal if the remaining system, sans battery, is less than 40 pounds.

The question is if the sacrifice of a massive robot is offset by additional development time...

A most interesting trade off study...

JMHO,

Mike