pic: Are these legal?



Are you asking if the blue Anderson connector is legal to use on your robot?

There are a lot of things in the picture… i dont think you would pass inspection with that laptop on your robot. But that waygo should be okay.

After reading the manual, I found no mention of any rule prohibiting a specific color of any object. Therefore I must believe that gray pneumatic wheels are legal.

Yea I am asking about the blue Anderson connectors. I couldn’t find anything in the manual but, I have never seen a team use any 50a power poles that were not red or pink.

What is the part number of the blue connector?

Then refer to the blue box associated with R36.

If that doesn’t answer your question, search the Official FIRST Q & A.

The color “blue” has been trademarked by teams 234, 254, 341, and 1086 and is therefore not a legal color for other FRC robots, parts, or teams. Unfortunately you can expect legal action if you or your team use anything “blue”. I would recommend against it.

From pictures I have never seen another team use a particular color of power poles. It’s a small detail but something I would expect from a team like 254.

:wink:

In seriousness though, I have considered purchasing other colors from Anderson, as they do sell their connectors in many colors. You’re right, it would be a nice touch if your team colors are reflected in unique ways on the robot; it’s a little thing, but worth considering.

Please note that if you use a different color SB50 connector other than the Red type (or the special *FRC pink version of the Red type), you will not be able to connect to the Spare Parts batteries or other team’s batteries. The SB50 connector series is keyed by color. A blue connector won’t mate to a red connector etc.

*The pink is a special case where Anderson produced pink versions using the Red mold because they had to much of the pink plastic and wanted to use it for the donation.

I can not tell if you are joking or not. But you should be good :smiley:

Yes, 'twas a joke

We used orange in 2013 and 2014 but we decided to switch back to red so that we would be compatible with other FRC teams, as the orange ones were too hard to force together with the red ones.

Is it illegal to modify the connectors ie shave off the inside tab.

Please reread Allen’s post above. Robot Rules for 2016 do not specifically call out color but the Blue Box in R36 explains this further. Do not try to force different colored SB50 connectors as this may damage them. Modifying the connectors so that other colors may be used may be a violation of R66.

I thought R66 would make this illegal but after rereading it I’m not sure that it does. This should be something that you Q&A.

R66 The Driver Station software, roboRIO, Power Distribution Panel, Pneumatics Control Modules,
Voltage Regulator Modules, RSL, 120A breaker, motor controllers, relay modules, Wireless Bridge,
and batteries shall not be tampered with, modified, or adjusted in any way (tampering includes
drilling, cutting, machining, rewiring, disassembling, etc.), with the following exceptions:

We also looked into using green SB50 connectors last year, but ditched the idea as soon as we realized each color was keyed differently. Not worth giving up compatibility with every other team in case you need to borrow/lend batteries at competition.

Nitpick: actually such a laptop would be legal if it were powered off a DC-DC converter and the battery removed as it is a COTS computing device. Obviously overkill, but perfectly legal by itself.

The battery can stay if it’s integral to the device.

That’s neat, anywhere I can read more?