Clueless Newbies

[clueless newbie]

We're a new team out of Detroit (Motto: "You'll win in the arena --- but you're meat in the parking lot!" ) which owes a big debt to IKE (Killer Bees) and Foley Freeze (John, Chris, etc).

I've got lots of questions --- (maybe that's because I program for a living.):

The rules say you bag the "bot" and you can bring up to 50 lbs to be installed at the games. My take has been that if your core "bot" is under 50 lbs you could bag the ballast and leave the core bot out. The other mentors on the team say "That's cheating!" My argument is based on Contract Law --- since they were so explicit on everything else why didn't they say exactly what had to be bagged?

The 8 Hours Out Of Bag Time --- does what come out have to go back in substantially unchanged? Or can we pull the "bot" and put the "ballast" in in place of the "bot"?