And then it hit me....

[Bill Beatty]

Joe,

As you know, I have been a strong advocate of having a rule that limits redesign of a robot after the competition starts. Last year a team attending three regionals could extend their build time by 18 days, which made a mockery of the six week rule. Before regionals, you "run what you brung" and if it broke and you couldn't fix it during the competition, so be it. Adding regionals complicates things.

I don't have a big problem with the new rule, but my own preference would be to limit the redesign allowed by limiting a spare to a "similar function" rule and let professional ethics take it from there. This way you could build spares at your leisure and if a ratio needs changing or an arm needs to be stronger, no problem. It is disturbing when a new device or major chassis redesign suddenly appears at the next regional.