Batteries Carried Into Competitions

[The Lucas]

Originally Posted by Craig Roys

There is no advantage - it is a waste of time to disconnect batteries just to walk in the door and reconnect them - the ruling is asinine and needs to be corrected.

Originally Posted by Bob Steele

If you purchased the battery connector from Andymark
http://andymark.biz/am-0009.html
You could then consider this COTS... and an unlimited number could come in.

You are correct that if someone sold the battery and connector together AND you purchased them... they could be considered COTS...

Correction: it is a waste of time to disconnect batteries just to walk in the door, weight the disconnected leads as part of the 40lb limit, and reconnect them.
(Note, I am not sure if there will or will not be weighing of the 40lbs allowance, Bills Blog says "weighed if necessary")

If you attached lugs to your batteries (which you probably did, unless you bought them COTS from AndyMark) they could be considered a FABRICATED ITEM and thus subject to the weight limit. Those 6 gauge wires weight enough that they could push you over the limit if you are not careful.

I also wonder if old batteries (not MK ES17-12) are subject to this ruling? They are legal to use in practice matches (could be useful if you are still attaching leads to the other batteries) and the pit but not in the actual competition.

It just doesn't make sense to me to include batteries in any weight limit if they are excluded from the 120lbs robot weight limit . I think bumpers should be excluded too (but they are not).