Al's Annual Inspection Thread 2013

[pyroslev]

I imagined any team that went to a previous week regional would have been able to shortcut things a bit but seeing the explanation that makes sense. Could a remedy to that be that when teams going to further events the Robot Inspectors sign the bag form with a copy of the inspection sheet? If not this season, then next season. I imagined the teams that went to previous events could inspected by noon at least if this were implemented.

Two points of concern from what I saw of the inspectors/teams at the
Virginia Regional.

1. Bumpers: The inspector stated one team need vertical supports added to the frame on the grounds that they could not been unsupported vertically more than 8" from the corner. A quick skim of the rules and nothing mentioning vertical supports in this fashion was in the rules. I found the same on the inspection checklist. Supports were added horizontally at their insistence and to prevent bumpers breaking again.

2. Wiring: I had a large number of teams come to the Tech Support table with symptoms of radio drop outs well into Saturday. Their radios were not wired into the regulated 12v port on the Power distribution board. They were either into the non-regulated section of the board or the regulated 5v port. This concerns me as these teams had either passed inspection or had been partially completed. I estimate I diagnosed 6 teams for wiring that shouldn't have passed inspection otherwise. Others diagnosed teams as well. As many as a quarter of the teams at the Virginia Regional had miswired radios.

In the coming weeks of regional and championships, please make sure you check the wiring on your radio. I hate that we're in the 4th week and radio wiring persists like this.