Accepted Tethers

[Action Joe]

At VCU there was one team with a tape measure device. Since it was almost identical to the one we had built and then discarded, I was curious as to how this team had gotten it past the judges. The team leader said that the judge told him that as long as the numbers were facing down, then it really wasn't a tape measure and was therefore legal. To make matters worse, the team leader said that the tape measure from Small Parts was not good enough for their needs so they went and purchased theirs from Home Depot. This is a violation of the rules, but the judges never caught it.


I understand that entanglement is a gray area, but when FIRST comes out and issues a ban on a certain type of mechanism and then allows it at the last minute it really penalizes those teams who strictly follow the rules. Our tape measure device was 3-4 lbs lighter than the mechanism we ended up building. And we really needed that 3-4 lbs.