If you could change one rule

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by ChrisH

On the other hand I don't feel like the inspectors should have to memorize multiple pages of the catalog to be able to tell whether or not a cylinder has been modified. Modification of any actuator increases the risk of failure. Failure can have dramatic consequenses and lead to injury or death. There was at least one case I know of where a team modified a clinder in a way that was potentially hazardous. It made it through two inspections before being caught precisely because the next inspector down the line was intimately familiar with the cylinders and what they should look like. The modification was done so well that it looke like the cylinder belonged that way.

BTW I do think the rule about having to use the FIRST pnuematic tubing is a little rediculous. I'd say any tube or fitting with the required pressure rating should be OK. One team managed to make their own coiled tube by heating the kit tube. You think that didn't void the rating? but it was technically legal even though it would have been better for them to use a tube that was made that way and wasn't.

(Fair warning: I'm not a pneumatics expert by any stretch. Take with a mineload of salt.)

Just as a thought to the former sentence--suppose FIRST loosened the cylinder requirements to a reasonable chunk of the Bimba catalog. Then the burden would be placed on teams to prove to inspectors that the cylinder had not been modified from its COTS condition. This could come in the form of FIRST posting a PDF (or series of PDFs) with pictures and other identifying techniques to show what the stock, unmodified cylinder is supposed to look like. Teams would then bring the applicable sections from this PDF along with them to the inspection table, just like their cost accounting form. If the cylinder on the robot doesn't clearly match the cylinder in the FIRST Book Of Cylinders, then the robot fails inspection.

As for tubing, it did seem a little bit silly from my view in the corner. If my understanding is right, (properly-rated) tubing is (properly-rated) tubing.