Al's Annual Inspection Thread 2013

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by Rosiebotboss

I will try to poke a 3/4 inch dowel (or something similar to the diameter of a finger) into the wheel(s). If I can contact any portion of the wheel other than the actual diameter that comes in contact with the "flying disk", I will ask for a modification to enclose the wheels.

Where did this test originate? I'm honestly not sure if I agree with it or not. As I've said, 4343's shooter you would certainly have been able to touch the wheel. It runs 1:1 on a fullsize CIM, at about 35% power.

I feel like this test is probably a little excessive in terms of its reach, and I dislike the inconsistency with which the provisions of G03/R08 are being enforced with regards to shooter wheels. If FIRST and the GDC had laid out a test like this in the manual, I would have no problem with forcing teams to comply, but they did not, and inconsistency leads to teams who've passed inspection at earlier events not being passed at later events. This type of inconsistency has caused problems at Championship before where teams passed inspection at their regionals, but then failed at Championship because of inconsistently applied rules.

In my opinion, the larger concern is not to keep fingers OUT of a shooter, but keep a disintegrating shooter IN. I wouldn't say an unguarded shooter is any more or less dangerous than the unguarded drivetrains and other mechanisms that are commonplace on FRC robots.