[Engineer]

My first year mentoring was for the 2008 Overdrive competition. Reading the rules (after the robot was finished) we discover the rules that state the light from the IFI controller must be visible from three free in front of the robot. The robot had an extremely low center of gravity and the IFI controller was on the bottom of the robot about 3/8” off the ground. The robot looked great and we didn’t want to cut it up to make the IFI visible. The rules stated that the “light” from the IFI board must be visible. We made a placard with the same wording as the on the IFI controller with a 3D printer and piped the “light” up with fiber optics to the placard. Al Skeirkiewicz probably remembers this one. The inspection judges said the IFI controller was not visible and said it did not pass. We argued that the rules state that the “light” must be visible and the “light” is visible. It was the actual light from the LEDs. In the end the judges said it was very clever idea and let us compete but told us that if we went to the national competition, we may not pass inspection. BTW we also won the GM Industrial Design award with that robot.