"Spare Parts" Rules Are Broken

[Astronouth7303]

Originally Posted by Kris Verdeyen

I'm not sure about the other regionals, but at the Lone Star regional last weekend, all robots in the elimination rounds were weighed before every elim match. This was, according to our head inspector, because during some random re-inspections, robots at other regionals had been found to have gained as much as 4-5 pounds since their initial inspection. The reason I bring it up is not to say that we're all crooks and need constant supervision to be kept in line, but to show that the culture of trust and sportsmanship is slipping. There are hundreds of new FIRST teams every year, and it will be a battle to make sure that every participant on every one of them knows that the rules are something we take seriously. We don't look the other way when a rule is bent or broken, even for established teams.

Don't even get me started on that.
At Buckeye, our team had a chain-driven drive train consisting of 45 tooth plastic sprockets. We couldn't use the steel ones we had because they were about 8 pounds heavier. But the plastic sprockets kept braking. we ran out, and ended up using the steel ones. We had 1 match before the inspectors weighed us. 5 pounds over weight. We ended up taking of the compressor to make weight. This about crippled our arm, the height/angle was powered by pnuematics!