Batteries Carried Into Competitions

[kborer22]

Originally Posted by eugenebrooks

Come on guys and gals. The GDC has ruled that batteries (alone) don't count against the withholding allowance. If you shipped your batteries and cables in the crate you have to assemble them in the pit, and if you didn't you still have to assemble them in the pit. There isn't anything to complain about on this front. It is a good idea to go over all those connections anyway, there are a lot of loose battery connections at competitions.

In my opinion, a lot of these rules adjustments result from pressing the GDC to clarify, and then clarify some more, instead of just letting common sense guide the interpretation of the rules. I wouldn't accuse the GDC of lawyering. It would appear that teams force them into corners with the constant challenges, and many of the responses are guided by the need to avoid the next corner.

The only rub here is that the unplanned impact of the weight of the cables on the withholding allowance is unfortunate. If you are impacted by this, you can solve the problem with COTS battery cables, they are available from AndyMark. You can also have a team that is way under the allowance bring the battery cables in for you. We would certainly do it for you, and we are way under our allowance because we shipped our entire robot, battery set, and cables in the crate. No doubt someone will worry about the legality of teams helping each other in this manner, and will ask the GDC about it. More power to you...

The most amusing thing about all of this is the fact that batteries and cables don't count towards the weight of the robot!

Eugene

For teams like us (and im sure there are many out there) who will be attending our first regional literally 1.5 miles from home (boston) this is a huge pain. Were certainly not going to ship out batteries a mile and half when we could just drive them over. Not to mention we have already cut our terminals to length and heat shrunk them. Why should we have to buy more terminals from andymark? Also you want to minimize the 6 AWG wire on your robot so if were were to connect a full length terminal we would be really stressing the wire and connections on the battery and at the connector end.