An Idea for Next Year using WATER!!

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by s_forbes

Interesting that you've posted this, I've considered using water as a hydraulic fluid for a FIRST robot, but never had the chance to implement it. I wonder if it would pass inspection?

R08 is the only applicable rule I can find, but it could be debated whether or not dihydrogen monoxide is hazardous.

In the blue box below 2013's R08, it says "Examples of items that will violate R08 include (but are not limited to)...Hydraulic fluids or hydraulic components".

I read that blue box as constraining the interpretation of R08 to specifically treat all of those things as if they are inherently unsafe (etc.), irrespective of the observed level of safety of a given mechanism at a given time.

[Jon Stratis]

The potential bad affects of a leak in a hydronic line are really what make it unsafe for FIRST robots. Water and electricity are a bad combination for a robot! Further, a leak would most likely result in "damage" to the field, forcing other matches to play through a puddle/soaked carpet. Regardless of the precautions you might take to prevent leaks, we all know anything can happen with these robots. I've seen hits bend structural frame material before, and arms accidentally get stuck inside another robot causing all sorts of damage to wiring and pneumatic tubing. If the Auto industry can't design a car that doesn't run a risk of leaking brake fluid (granted, they have gotten much better and it's not very common... But it does still happen), I doubt you can design a robot without that same risk!

In a similar way, consider this year's game. With climbing, we anticipated that many teams would want to be able to adjust their center of gravity or weight. A "clever" way to do that would be with a reservoir of sand or bb's or something similar. It seems great, but there's a huge concern for spillage. What happens when the robot takes a hit and bb's go rolling around the field? Field reset would be cleaning them up all weekend! Fortunately, I don't think we saw much of this...

[WaterClaw]

And People were afraid of the water game joke