[Al Skierkiewicz]

Everyone,
Inspections are one of the things that make you less afraid of other teams having an unfair advantage. Inspectors will make mistakes, myself included. If you have an issue that you notice on another robot, just ask the LRI at your event. It could be that an inspector missed it in his eagerness to get the robot out for their first match. It could be that the team is correcting the issue or making a change that hasn't been reinspected yet. It could be an inspector misinterpreting the rules. It could be an inspector was convinced by the team mentor that "It passed at xyz regional and they said it was OK". It could be that the rule you have issues with, may be a misinterpretation by you. Or one of those involved (team or inspector) simply forgot to look at a particular TU. I was called on a robot issue last year at Champs and told by the team that they had faithfully checked through all the team updates and showed me that they filed them in a notebook and couldn't find the rule. As I looked through their notebook, I noticed they had in fact collected all the Team Updates through TU15. The change was in TU16 and they had not read it or filed it yet.
Lead Robot Inspectors are subject to constant discussion and reporting throughout the season, and have access to both officials in Manchester (Frank and Russ and Bill Miller if needed) and myself. They cannot be everywhere at once. Understanding is greatly appreciated.