Regarding the dimensions, our team was wondering which way would be considered the width, and which would be considered the length, or does it not matter which is which.
Thanks.
It doesn’t matter. You’ll just need to fit into a 28"x42"x78" box.
The length is the long dimension, the width is the short dimension. Which way the robot’s wheels face doesn’t matter.
From the Q&A
Game - The Robot » General Robot Design
Q47 Q. What determines width and length? Given a 28 x 42 overall footprint, could the wheels be on the 28" side? Does the wheel placement determine width or length?
FRC5141 on 2015-01-07 | 12 Followers
A. There is no rule that specifies ROBOT orientation when determining the TRANSPORT CONFIGURATION. The long dimension cannot exceed 3 ft. 6 in. and the short dimension may not exceed 2 ft. 4 in.
Especially since drives like kiwi, 4-omni holonomic, and swerve don’t really have a “front” or “back”. “Length” and “width” are just words to distinguish the two horizontal axes from the vertical.
The TRANSPORT CONFIGURATION dimensions have nothing to do with the front, too, or sides of the robot. They only define the box the robot has to fit in while being moved around the arena. For those purposes, the 28" dimensions are considered the width, as they will fit through the normal width of a standard door opening. This means that you may need to put the robot sideways on the cart in order to fit through the doors, or in some rare cases the robot may be longer than it it tall and be laying on its back!
There have been several Q&A questions about the TRANSPORT CONFIGURATION, I suggest you read the answers to those on the official Q&A.
Rules wise, it would appear not to matter, but logistically, you might care. The 28" dimension is chosen to be narrower than a door way, and I suspect the 42" dimension is either based on the field gate opening and/or some ‘standard’ for how tight a corner needs to be turned in standard building/equipment/hallway/doorway scenario.
In other words, you may need to move your bot through a doorway, and if it is a ‘wide’ bot’ with a 42" front face, you won’t be able to roll it through a standard doorway, unless you put it on a cart with casters or wheels oriented 90 degrees to the bot’s wheels. But if the bot is max height, you may not be able to roll the cart + bot through the doorway due to height reasons.
Worst case, you have to drag or slightly lift your bot to get it sideways through a standard doorway.
A year or two ago, a team built a circular bot with the max 112" perimeter-- this plus bumpers meant it would not fit through a standard door-- they were given special permission to take a different route back to the pits at 10K Lakes regional, so that they didn’t have to pass through the women’s restroom like the rest of the teams. (yes, the restroom was closed for normal use.)
I’m waiting for a bot this year to have a 28x42x78 Transport config with wheels oriented perpendicular to the diagonal, so that it needs a 50.5" doorway if they want to roll the bot through the doorway 
Alright thanks! We were just wondering as our kit gave us a 31 1/2" wide by 28" long, and we wanted to make sure everything was okay rule wise. Haven’t actually tried to fit it through a door though, but that maybe thats something we should check soon lol
Beware that the 28" wide rule is absolute…if your chassis has bolt heads or other stuff sticking out past the 28" width, it won’t pass inspection.