Custom Chargers for backup battery

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Tris,
I believe the "may" in the language is meant that you may or may not charge the battery in the robot. If you choose to charge in the robot then the IFI charger is to be used.

Isn't that the first "may" in the rule? I'm considering the second one (i.e. the ninth word of the third sentence).

My point is simply that they failed to restrict alternatives (in the case of the on-robot charger) by only describing what's allowed, and not saying what's disallowed.

And of course, I'm pretty sure that they intended for teams to use only the IFI charge circuit for on-robot charging. It's just that in order to say that, they should have repeated "is to be" in place of "may", or qualified it with "only". Sure, it's lawyerlike to insist upon this point, but it's also crucial to consider all the possibilities when interpreting an engineering specification.

By the way, I should qualify what I said above about COTS chargers; I meant for that to refer to off-robot charging only....