[45Auto]

Sgreco, I'm like you, every year I see obviously illegal robots. It's always been small, unintentional things like you mentioned - bolt protrusions and Globe motors this year, the wrong Mabuchi motor last year. Nothing to be worth worrying about, and to tell the truth, none of those robots have been competitive, top-rank robots. It seems that the teams that field the robots I'm worried about make SURE that they are compliant with anything the inspectors can throw at them.

I think that the fact that the inspectors are volunteers and not necessarily familiar with the rules leads to lots of robots "getting by" with things that are not quite legal. Some inspectors are VERY familiar with the rules, some have never seen a robot in their life and have read the rules maybe once. They don't have a technical background and are not familiar with many of the things on the checklist.

We've always breezed through inspection. We always build our robots 1" inside the sizing limits (1/2" per side) and make sure we READ all the rules and updates and comply with them. Doesn't mean we necessarily like them. Last year we had an inspector we could have got an M1 Abrams tank by, this year we had one that has been a mentor for 10 years and knew EVERYTHING about the rules. Doesn't really matter if you comply with all the rules anyway.