"Spare Parts" Rules Are Broken

[Astronouth7303]

Originally Posted by Kris Verdeyen

I'm not sure about the other regionals, but at the Lone Star regional last weekend, all robots in the elimination rounds were weighed before every elim match. This was, according to our head inspector, because during some random re-inspections, robots at other regionals had been found to have gained as much as 4-5 pounds since their initial inspection. The reason I bring it up is not to say that we're all crooks and need constant supervision to be kept in line, but to show that the culture of trust and sportsmanship is slipping. There are hundreds of new FIRST teams every year, and it will be a battle to make sure that every participant on every one of them knows that the rules are something we take seriously. We don't look the other way when a rule is bent or broken, even for established teams.

Don't even get me started on that.
At Buckeye, our team had a chain-driven drive train consisting of 45 tooth plastic sprockets. We couldn't use the steel ones we had because they were about 8 pounds heavier. But the plastic sprockets kept braking. we ran out, and ended up using the steel ones. We had 1 match before the inspectors weighed us. 5 pounds over weight. We ended up taking of the compressor to make weight. This about crippled our arm, the height/angle was powered by pnuematics!

[Andy Baker]

Originally Posted by Kris Verdeyen

I don't see how this can be considered to be "ok", and here is why:
....

Kris,

In most cases, I agree with your post. However, with Ken's case in particular, you are assuming too much. You cannot just assume that a part on a practice robot was tweaked or modified since kickoff. If it was, then I would bet money that Ken would not bring that part into the arena.

Over all of the years I have been in this, Ken has been the most picky stickler about rules that I know. He pretty much sets the standard with regard to this kind of stuff. Ken walks the walk and leads by example. Many of us look up to him because of this.

If he brings in a part, it is definitely a spare part that was un-modified since ship date. I don't care if it was on his practice robot or if it was his paperweight on his desk for the past 4 weeks.

just my opinion,

Andy B.

[TF8]

What about the cases where a team has a practice bot and over the next three weeks drives the heck out of it, developes autonomous modes, and figures out what will break? They then spend pit day fixing what broke on the practice bot on the comp bot and uploading the new code.

[Don Wright]

That's the whole point of having a second robot.