900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by cglrcng

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Al, now can you please post a side by side pic of the Robot that Team 900 originally brought to ST Louis to compete with? (I am sincerely interested in asking about exactly what happened to the ORIGINAL ROBOT that Team 900 brought to the competition). Did they leave with 2 ROBOTS in their crate or just 1 ROBOT? ....Was it (their original upon arrival crated ROBOT), completely disassembled firstly (and the existing robot parts used to build the later NEW ROBOT), before building another from the ground up robot in 7 hrs.? (It looks in their video like a brand new kitbot chassis was used).

If not, then how is it possible that they did not exceed the (rules controlled), posted 1 ROBOT weight limits and Total BOM Cost limits? (IE: THE ROBOT must not weigh more than, or cost more than the listed rules limits).

Were the 2 combined/separate ROBOTS more than 125 lbs. or $4,000.00 in total costs? Inquiring minds just wish to know.

I'm not Al, but I was part of the group that inspected them immediately prior to Einstein, so I think I can shed some light on these questions.

First, there is no rule against building mechanisms or combining mechanisms while at a competition - and a robot is, after all, just a collection of mechanisms.

Q&A 429 states:

Q. We are seeking clarification for R4. If a robot has two interchangeable mechanisms such that only one of them can be on the robot at a time. Would that robot be able to be counted under two weights for two different configurations, One weight for mechanism A and one weight for mechanism B? Or would both mechanisms need to be included together in the final robot weight?

A. If you're intent is to go through Inspection once, everything must be included, and thus under the weight limit (per R4). Alternatively, you can pass Inspection with the first element, but if you want to switch it out for the second element, you must be reinspected with only that second element and compete with that element (per T10). If you want to go back to the first element, you must be reinspected with the first element again.

Per this Q&A, their reinspection only included the elements present on the "harpoon bot" - any elements previously on their robot that were left in their pit were not included for weight purposes.

As for cost,

R9 The total cost of all items on the ROBOT shall not exceed $4000 USD. All costs are to be determined as explained in Section
4.4: Budget Constraints. Exceptions are as follows:

Given the wording (emphasis above mine), I think we can take the cost aspect and treat it the same as the weight - elements not included in the robot inspection were not included in the BOM.

I can't speak to the total cost of everything - I never saw the original BOM, just the final BOM before Einstein. For weight, however, the final robot was just about 120lbs - there was no way that plus whatever they had previously was under 120.