"Spare Parts" Rules Are Broken

[MikeDubreuil]

Originally Posted by Natchez

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.

I would check out Rule R09 in the robot section.
During the six week period following Kickoff: You may fabricate spareparts for replacement purposes of items on your robot as long as they are exact replacements for parts on the robot you shipped to the event. They must be brought to the event in a completely disassembled state as individual components (no bolt-on assemblies).

You can only make spare parts which are exact replacements for what you shipped. If you shipped a chunk of aluminum, you can only bring spare chunks of aluminum. Seems pretty clear to me.