[FRC Blog] Orlando Incident

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Cory

I'm glad Frank has cleared this up.

It still concerns me that there seems to be a precedent set here where a team can be retroactively DQ'ed for being in violation of a robot rule.

T6 seems to have been taken to the extreme and interpreted to mean that if a team is ever in a condition where they would not currently pass inspection (but were previously inspected), they can be DQ'ed from a match at any point in time thereafter.

My interpretation of the rule is that a team must have passed initial inspection in order to play and that any condition that puts them out of compliance with the rules must be remedied as soon as it is called to their attention, before they can go on the field again, per G4

Perhaps a Q&A is appropriate here.

It's just an application of T10

If a ROBOT is modified after it has passed Inspection, other than modifications described in T8, that ROBOT must be re-Inspected.

'

Followed by T6

A Team is only permitted to participate in a Qualification or Elimination MATCH and receive Qualification Points if their ROBOT has passed Inspection. If it is discovered after the start of the MATCH that a ROBOT did not pass Inspection and the Team participated in the MATCH, the entire ALLIANCE receives a RED CARD for that MATCH.

Consider the following scenario:

Team 1337 passes inspection weighing 100lbs.
Team 1337 plays Match1
Team 1337 decides they need to ballast their bot, they add 15lbs of ballast.

Would anyone object to saying that 1337 needs to be re-inspected? If not, we can safely say that their first inspection no longer counts and they HAVEN'T passed inspection. Obviously, Match1 is legal but any matches until they get reinspected they are playing with an uninspected robot. Why is this important? What if instead of adding 15lbs of steel ballast they added 25lbs of steel ballast? Or changed some wiring to be a smaller gauge and now it is a potential fire risk?