[Bill_B]

I would not be surprised to learn that the major clue to the assembly ruling is to be found in the GDC's comment about union rules at (some of?) the various venues. Stage hands and electricians have worked hard to preserve their work environments. The venues involved with FIRST tournaments make use of that labor under very specific conditions, almost certainly not the same at every location. Perhaps there is a rule about the handling of event equipment at one or more of them that requires the robots to enter the venue in pieces. We might be looking at the "least common denominator" of venue rules for machinery. That is, everyone must split up the robot because one or more events requires it.