Q&A response - new interpretation of R16

[The Lucas]

Originally Posted by squirrel

It's called a "tram gage", and you can buy them

http://www.chassisliner.com/Product_Measuring_All.shtml

I wasn't going for practicality, I was kidding about building giant Motor Trend Car of the Year style outside calipers. Sort of a Geek Chic thing like MIT's Giant Slide Rule, but enough threadjacking for me. I just couldn't get the image of a team of Robot Inspectors wielding giant calipers out of my head.

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by The Lucas

I wasn't going for practicality, I was kidding about building giant Motor Trend Car of the Year style outside calipers.

You may have been kidding, but it might be helpful to make your own giant outside calipers, set at 80", from whatever is handy...say an 8 foot long by 4" wide strip of plywood and two shorter strips screwed onto the ends at right angles, with exactly 80" open space between them. Then you can check yourself to see if there is any place around your robot that you can't fit within the 80" limit.

[StevenB]

I just wanted to point this out: the equilateral triangle isn't really the limiting case for a 3-sided figure. It's actually the curvilinear triangle with a width of 80 in. It has more area, for a given width.

I realized that after about 24 hours of thrashing around thinking about this problem. I'm still trying to figure out how much a difference this makes, and how to shape the robot so as to get the maximum useful area. Thanks, FIRST, for providing sleepless nights even when I don't meet with the team.