"Spare Parts" Rules Are Broken

[Natchez]

I am now in favor of a future rule that states, "Only off-the-shelf and raw materials may be brought to the pits."

The rules currently allow teams to

1. Manufacture a gravelator in the 6 week period
2. Not ship the gravelator
3. Use the gravelator to practice
4. Disassemble the gravelator
5. Bring the gravelator parts to the competition
6. Reassemble the gravelator on Thursday and put it on their 'bot

This is certainly within the letter of the rules but I contend that this violates the spirit of the rules. To the extreme and somewhat ridiculous, a team could conceivably ship a block of aluminum, practice with their real robot after the ship-date, disassemble it, and then put it back together on Thursday of the competition. I reviewed the robot and shipping rules and can not find anything to contradict this. Please set me straight if I overlooked something.

Basically, if the "don't bring any modified parts to the pits" rule was enacted, this would eliminate any questions about when parts were manufactured. Yes, this means that any parts that were manufactured/modified in the six week period would need to be stuffed in the crate with the robot if a team thought they may use them at the competition. For those who are going to argue that their crate will weigh more than 400 lbs. if they have to stuff it full of spare parts, just consider it another engineering challenge ... or fundraising challenge.

Now in favor of the anti-gravelator rule,
Lucien