2006 pneumatics rules - my rant

[Jared Russell]

<rant>Ok, now I understand why we can only choose from certain manufacturers due to their sponsorship of FIRST and the kit donations they make, and I'm cool with that. But why are we only allowed to use kit-style cylinders?!

There's a supplier restriction and a cost restriction already in place; I don't see how this rule helps anyone out, and it rules out a bunch of pretty cool types of pneumatics (pancake cylinders, multi-position cylinders, cylinders with integrated position sensors, etc.)

I really hope that FIRST chages this next year.

Oh well, just another challenge to overcome...</rant>

[Sachiel7]

Yes, I personally would like to see FIRST in support of at least more multi-positioning with pneumatics. I think my team has driven multipositioning w/ what we are allowed to it's edge.
I would feel like more teams could say "Yes, we use pneumatics for our arm...lift etc."
In 2005, we completely ran our arm off of a 24" stroke bimba cylinder. We had a mid-stroke positioning system integrated, and used reed switches to locate the arm to preset positions. The system worked pretty well, but would've worked even better had the "door been opened" a bit...
-sigh-

[KenWittlief]

the reason is simple: all engineers have to design within limitation and restrictions. This is part of the challenge.

If FIRST said "use whatever you want, dont spend more than $10,000" then we could do lots of neat stuff.

Keep in mind, this entire design challenge is arbitrary. FIRST could change many things to make it all easier, right?

[Sachiel7]

Oh I totally agree, I just wish we had more options. I just feel like lots of teams don't choose pneumatics because of the limitations on them, and have solutions using motors most of the time. Where's the fun without the challenge?