Important Q/A forum responses

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Dan Swando

Even though the rule makes a lot of sense in the theory of "all power from the robot," logistically, it's a disaster. Hypothetically this means that you cannot use an offboard battery to power the compressor, even if you're using it at the competition. Why? Because the battery to power the compressor would count as a SECOND battery, and you're only allowed one battery to power your robot per match. Teams will HAVE to find a way to "port in" to their robot to power the compressor (like an electrical outlet). This is easily accomplished by having a couple of unused Anderson Connectors attached to the outside frame of your robot, connected to the rest of your wiring harness. Just plug, pressurize, and go!

I'm pretty sure an offboard compressor has always needed to be powered by an onboard robot battery. Atleast thats how I've always read the rule.

I'm much more concerned about the fact that ALL robot prep must happen with the competition battery. I understand the logic there, but keeping track of whether you're testing and debugging or actually resetting devices on your robot for a match will be a real nightmare. What if you've been debugging over lunch with a non-comp battery and parts of your robot end up in reset position and then you forget that you did so over lunch and don't re-reset them with a comp battery? I'm thinking that they'll almost have to be a bit lenient with this one and only come down on blatant repeat offenders. It's not as if you can scan the robot with a tricorder and find out if the quantum wave stat of the last electrons to course through it match a competition battery...