Are the mini-bots allowed to use hinges like door hinges, etc. to use as doors that close up around the pole?
Not if they aren’t in <R92>, and I don’t see “hinges” in there.
However, using aluminum, hardware, and maybe some surgical tubing or something, I’m sure you could rig up some form of hinge substitute.
Are you allowed to mill them out of aluminum since the rules allow the use of sheet aluminum?
I don’t see why not.
As you mentioned, <R92> part S allows "Mechanical hardware (i.e. screws, bolts, etc). Pending clarification in the Q&A, I wouldn’t completely rule out hinges as hardware. The hardware store calls them hardware, and you find them stocked pretty close to the screws and bolts.
See this thread for more discussion.
But being close is not being equal. 5 is close to 4…
The specific examples in the rule tend to point towards fasteners, not springs and hinges (motion parts, we could call them).
yea i dont see why not either, Don. btw, i might want to use some kind of hinge in the prototype ive been working on, so hopefully i can get that going. i may need some help though
As long as it’s made out of allowable parts, then yes.
Check out McMaster part #1635A24. It’s a 100% polycarbonate hinge, and thus should be legal.
Update#3 seems to rule out hinges on the minibot. you could make one, but purchasing a pre-made hinge, regardless of material, seems to be out. right?
well, if it is listed in the parts you are allowed to use, then you can, but if it is not, then just forget it, my team thought of arms that used pulleys and surgical tubing to clamp it shut
Update #3 still doesn’t rule out the polycarbonate hinge. I’d Q&A that one if I were you.
What of Team Update 3 makes purchasing premade parts illegal?
A couple of the posters here and I seem to have the same opinion. You should be able to only MAKE hinges. Buying them is against the rules.
If they aren’t Tetrix, and they aren’t specifically listed (which the parts in question–hinges–are not), then you either have to make your own or go without. Team Update 3 removed all ambiguity on the “hardware” point by changing “hardware” to “fasteners”.
But the hinges are made exclusively of materials found on the list of allowed parts. Why is it suddenly required that you hand make them if they are literally just shaped versions of what is allowed?
Ask the GDC.
I think many door hinges are steel, though. Steel isn’t allowed… so you’d have to find aluminum ones. Or the polycarb ones listed earlier. Assuming, of course, that the GDC allows non-team-manufactured hardware that isn’t otherwise legal.
What I was trying to say is that Team Update 3 does not require that teams are the group that fabricated said materials - if the items are made from things exclusively from that list they are legal.
The GDC has not said that teams can go out and buy their X Minibot material pre-formed into final form. They have said that the team can machine said materials. If I were to go out and buy VEX metal (aluminum), I might have a hard time passing inspection as the rules stand. But I can go out and buy aluminum and machine it into VEX metal, and I’d get some funny looks but would probably pass inspection.
There’s another way to look at this: Where, on the list of allowed materials, do you find COTS parts? Parts A-E (Tetrix/FTC), I, K-N, P, S, U, X, Y, AA, BB. All the other parts are going to require some modification. Rope, wire, tape, velcro, PVC, and loctite are all going to need to be removed from their containers or cut to length or otherwise worked with. Aluminum and polycarb will need to be cut and shaped and otherwise moved from raw material (the COTS form) to fabricated item.
I don’t necessarily like it either, but that’s the way the rules are currently written and interpreted. If that’s not the way they should be written, then the GDC needs to change that–and I happen not to have access to ask that sort of question on Q&A.
To put it frankly - I think you’re making that restriction up. It’s said nowhere in any Manual, you’re just deriving it.
And for what it’s worth (standard disclaimer that even posts by Dave Lavery on CD are no substitute for the Q&A here):
If the Manual was worded differently I don’t see why he’d make that post…
I think you are swimming in dangerous water if you think that when they say polycarbonate that means you can use anything made of that…
i believe that the rule says polycarbonate and not polycarbonate parts…
This is one to ask Q and A
I will be very surprised if they say that a pre-made polycarbonate hinge is the same as “polycarbonate”
As an inspector unless I had a definite Q and A response that indicated that this was ok I would not allow that pre-made hinge.
And by the way… VEX metal isn’t made of aluminum it is made of steel.
(You can get a very expensive set of VEX parts made in aluminum but the pieces you get in the kit and that 99% of all teams use are made of steel.
Dave’s statement can be interpreted several ways… you decide how to do it…
Yes VEX metal is still steel…it was made of it…
But is steel the same as vex metal…???