light up fan

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Mike,
The Tips and Guidelines make several references to fans and their use. The robot section makes reference to additional components...
<R47> Additional electronic components for use on the ROBOT must be either COTS items, or
assembled from COTS items. Additional electronic components include any object that
intentionally conducts electricity, other than IFI relays and speed controllers, wires,
connectors, solder, and fabricated printed circuit boards.
So as such fans are considered a COTS item and following the flowchart I found no prohibitions.

Judging by that Q&A response concerning hard drives, which stated that they are illegal because they contain a non-KOP motor, it would seem that (apart from the two types of fan in the KOP*), no others are permitted (because they contain non-KOP motors).

Now, traditionally, nobody has really considered the fans to be motors. Indeed, rules like <R91> indicate that motors should be connected to Spikes or Victors, yet historically, fans were allowed to be connected directly to the breakers, and this interpretation is backed up by the current power distribution diagram.

In conventional usage, the fan and the hard drive use their motors for pretty much the same thing—controlling their own motion, rather than the motion of another robot part, yet the hard drive is prohibited. Take it to the Q&A, and see how they balance the competing precedents.

Originally Posted by Compnerd

You said the fan led is blue. That could be an issue, because there is the BLUE Alliance, and FIRST could say that it could be a possible distraction... I am not sure check the Q&A

I wouldn't worry about that. FIRST isn't using lights to denote alliance. Avoid green, obviously.

*There's maybe an argument to be made for replacing a kit fan with a COTS fan containing an identical motor (since the motor is a duplicate of a part of a kit item). Ignoring for a moment the question of whether the entire fan is considered a motor (and thus largely unmodifiable), I'd figure that the burden of proof lies with the team to prove that the motor is a clone of the KOP unit—without disassembly of the fan, this is rather difficult, probably to the point of being impractical. Also, since the Q&A considers the Victor fans to be integral parts of the Victor (this is highly debatable, because the Victor could also be viewed as an assembly, but that's the current ruling), their fans would not be considered KOP parts on their own.