Batteries Carried Into Competitions

[Corey Balint]

Originally Posted by 1075guy

Corey's got it exactly. Neither us, the teams, NOR the GDC, are using the Q&A correctly. If you ask me, I think our OVERUSE of the Q&A stems from the GDC's tendency of late to make ludicrous calls, like this one. They've always told us to follow the intent, and not the letter of the rules, but yet, when we grill them on it, they seem to respond based on the letter of the rules and not the intent. We need to stop asking questions like the one that caused this whole debacle about whether a battery + cables = NON-COTS. Every team I've ever seen bring batteries to a competition had connectors on their batteries. You have to put a connector on the battery in order to use it, and presumably you used them during build to practice with. The rules explicitly state that you're ALLOWED to bring your batteries to competition with you, so why would you EVER consider taking the connectors off of them, it just doesnt make sense.

I wouldn't say ludicrous, but we are forcing the issue on the GDC. We've done this before (see 2005 again), and we should definitely be monitoring our own questions a bit more.

However, that's a whole 'nother conversation. The GDC will do what they think is best and fair for all teams. I just hope these issues arise earlier in build next time.