|
Not that we would ever do this...
If you are making a change to improve functionality (such as changing gear ratio), you should wait til you get to the regional and either do it there or have the shop do it. In other words, your robot works, just not as well as you would like.
I think about things this way. If you are contending for the national championship, how are you going to feel about yourself if you know that you violated a major rule to get there?
On the other hand, if you are making a change so that you can get up and running, I would be inclined to look the other way.
In our rookie season, we could have done lots of stuff after the ship date that would have let us be functional at competition. We strictly abided by the rules and spent all of our time in the pits trying to get a robot running. This does not serve anyone's interests (ours, the students, FIRSTs, other competitors).
On Raul's safety comments, I hope the entire FIRST community would say, make a change if it is a safety issue.
On your specific problem, if you buy an off-the-shelf lightened sprocket, you are withing the rules. If you buy a sprocket that you have the vendor lighten and bill the labor, you are technically fabricating after the ship date and it would be illegal.
|