Perennial Q&A Answers

[Gary Dillard]

I noted something while inspecting at the Championship that I'd like to throw out for discussion regarding legacy rulings in the official Q&A.

A couple of years ago I posted a question to the Q&A regarding the legality of rotating the head of the compressor 90 degrees to accommodate rounting of plumbing; it appears to have been designed to do that (4 bolt flange) and seemed pretty straight forward. However, the GDC responded that it would be considered a modification of the compressor and not allowed per one of the rules. OK, no problem - we won't do it.

This year while doing spot inspections I noticed one of the teams had rotated the head of their compressor 90 degrees, so I pointed out that this was against the rules. They argued (rightly so, I think) that it was not, so we went to the lead inspector who agreed that it was a modification which was not allowed by the rules. I had told him about the previous ruling so I'm sure that influenced his decision. The team changed their configuration to meet the rule.

So my question is, if a ruling is made in previous years that something is or is not allowed by the rules, and the something hasn't changed and the rule hasn't changed, does (should) that ruling stand for future competitions? For instance, COTS parts definitions, motor and pneumatic requirements and modifications, definition of "entanglement" have all been submitted previously and pretty much the parts and rules have remained the same, so I think it should be safe to say that the GDC hasn't changed their intent and prior rulings in many cases should be adequate.

Or do we have to take a long list of rulings from every season and submit them every single year to make sure it gets documented for the current season?

My put is that
1) Current rules surpercede previous rules (always)
2) Q&A interpretations on previous rules that are the same as current rules should be sufficient without having to get a current year interpretation
3) If the question does get asked in the current year Q&A and a different answer is received, that supercedes previous interpretations.

One issue with this is accessing prior year's interpretations; they are archived but the inspectors will likely not have a copy of every ruling ever made by the GDC. But if it helps your case, have a copy and show it.