Pnuematic Cylinder Definition

[McGurky]

Rotary actuators have been allowed in past years, and there (to my reading) has not been much change to the pneumatic rules. Still ask Q/A if you feel the need.

[DampRobot]

This is probably not the right question for this thread, but I didn't want to add to the five bajilion threads created after kickoff.

The manual only allows us (as usual) to have engergy stored in the robot as electrical energy in the batery, change in robot cg, deformation of robot parts, or in the pneumatic system. There is no exception for gas springs.

Would gas springs be disallowed this year? They don't really "deform" (they compress), and I'm not sure the gas inside could qualify as a robot part anyway. I also wouldn't say that they are part of the pnumatic system.

What do you guys think? I hope this gets clarified in the first update...

[ThaneS]

By R78, gas shocks are not pneumatic devices. They've been allowed in the past (as implied by their mention in R78) as they're essentially springs. While they don't deform exactly like a metal spring, the gas does deform by compressing, satisfying R37.

[IndySam]

They have been allowed in the past, in fact small ones were on the Bimba donation list.

I see no rule this year prohibiting them.

As long as they meet the standard pneumatic rules (port size, psi rating, ....) and costs rules, they should be OK.