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Springs are springs and ALL should count
I think that Joe and Dodd are right on the money on this one. The so called spring energy rule is so typical of FIRST, in that it is so ambiguous and difficult to understand that I believe many teams will simply ignore it, hoping that FIRST inspectors won't have the know how or capability of calling them on it.
It's just ridiculous to talk about stored energy in springs without including gas struts, and even pnuematic cylinders also.
If this is suppose to be about safety - it doesn't address the occurrences after the match starts including the time needed to move the robots off the field. If its suppose to be a safety net for the audience it missed the mark even worse, as many machines will potentially have alot more energy in other devices after the match starts.
Unfortunately, the watermark or requirement is set so low that many, many, many team s will violate the rule without even knowing that they did. Teams that do think of creative ways to comply, will not be rewarded if the inspectors simply ignore the rule - FIRST should explain exactly HOW this rule will be validated during inspection, so every team is aware and cannot claim they didn't know.
It's hard enough for many teams just to make the weight and size limitations, while still trying to get the darn robot to work, let alone deal with one more nightmare engineering problem in the pits when they find out they are illegal, due to having to much counterbalance holding certain parts in the required starting position.
I recognize that it's far to late to totally change the rule, but can't they at least provide something that would help unsuspecting teams, or teams that simply choose to ignore the rule - some kind of guideline to help them do a sense check of if they are legal.
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