2014 Orlando Regional

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

If an inspector passes a robot that's actually illegal, is the team still liable for being illegal?

I'd say this has to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. To grant an automatic pass encourages subterfuge. To disregard the fact that an inspector passed it is unfair, particularly for the reasons you articulated.

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

Also, for all my years in FRC, and my brief stint as inspector and LRI, I don't think I've ever seen any sort of re-inspection form or document. Or any real system for recording this. I've always gone with brief re-inspections and verbal okays from our inspectors before, and everyone's word has always been good enough. If we're going to have to get all bureaucratic about it, I think a lot of inspectors are going to get very annoyed in the coming weeks.

When serving as an LRI, particularly as I gained more experience (and even before the introduction of the reinspection line on the checklist), I encouraged inspectors to document changes on the original form and initial the changes, but I can't say that I made it a priority to verify whether that was being done. For systematic reinspections for the elimination rounds, I did insist that a record be kept even if there were no changes, but recognize that not every reported change was adequately annotated.

When serving as a regular inspector, I definitely attempt to make those change annotations myself. I haven't made annotations when teams approached me with a reference question that didn't involve at least a partial inspection of a robot part.