<R35> - Adhesive Tape

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by DeepWater

Are there any inspectors out there that could shed light on how they would view this issue?

This is always a tricky rule, because of the many ways that it can be interpreted. In the past, some Q&A responses and unofficial comments have suggested that tape is defined by how it's used—the intent of the rule was to avoid teams duct-taping robots together, so they sought to prevent the use of tape as a fastener. At other times, adhesive tape is anything sold as adhesive tape—but this is potentially unsatisfactory, because self-adhesive sheets of a film or paper can perform the same function, and presumably violate the intent of the rule. Similarly, when no descriptive name is given to a product, how narrow does it have to be to be an adhesive tape, rather than an adhesive sheet?

Last year, the standard was pretty much one of usage. Self-adhesive rubber matting, for example, was permitted by Q&A responses, even though it was in effect a tape, and may even have been supplied on a roll.

As I interpreted it last year, tape used as a fastener was definitely not allowed, anything that could be considered tape (but wasn't necessarily called tape) used as a fastener was similarly not allowed (but admittedly a grey area). Anything sold as tape (i.e. has "tape" in the name, or on the manufacturer's description) couldn't be used for anything other than what was explicitly permitted by last year's equivalent of <R35>. But I allowed things which were similar to tape (like the self-adhesive mat, or non-slip stair tread overlays), but which were not used as a fastener, and weren't labelled as tape. It's obviously open to interpretation, but I believe that that satisfied both the letter of the rules, and the intent, as they existed last year. (But it's an ugly compromise.)

This year, however, the Q&A has ruled against staircase tread tape. It's not clear whether they're ruling against it because it's called/sold as tape, or because it has the properties of tape. When extending that Q&A response to other products, you obviously need to know which sense of the term was intended.

Gluing your own sandpaper would definitely pass inspection (assuming all other rules are satisfied).