This picture by Wayne Doenges captures the conversation between me and LRI’s at the Championship, when they told me that 3940’s robot was illegal for having purple-painted pneumatic air tanks. I especially like my wife Mary’s expression here.
Love the picture! It reminded me about this meme
Taken from Facebook’s Robotics Memes
That feeling when you’re being told your robot is illegal, despire having passed inspections and both the regional level, and the championship inspection. It’s not a good one…
I know that feeling Andy… 2010 will forever be an infamous year for 1126.
We shared the pain, Andy. We noticed a late response to a Q and A question regarding painting of air tanks being regarded as “modification” and had to switch out our 10 black tank manifold that served double as our ball chamber just days before bagging. We had a talk with some of the Clippard guys at Champs and they said they are likely going to be manufacturing their tanks in color soon so have faith and hope their choices includes purple:D
It happens. Even to the best.
I agree, Mary’s expression is priceless.
Couldn’t you have had AndyMark quickly create a part number am-2007P for a purple COTS tank?
I told him that at the shop 
I wish I had thought of this pun…
Next year will we be allowed to paint the tanks?
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And it only took 3 LRI’s!
These pics are all great.
I can just imagine the pickle it put them in, having to tell Andy. 
They done good.
Jane
I was informed but chose to stay out of the picture. Andy found me later…
The count is four if you include Andy.
At BMR I had to tell Andy that their robot weighed 122 pounds. Andy said “What was the weight really?”
Chris is having way too much fun.
Andy,
We distracted them as long as we could with our illegal bumpers, but they still found you.
Yep, I’ve been ruling painted plastic tanks illegal for a couple of years now. You just can’t tell what effect the chemicals in the paint are going to have on the strength of the plastic, and you never know what type paint was used. Wish the team had been at Smoky Mountain or Peachtree. Would have saved some grief at the Championships.
Dr. Bob
Chairman’s Award is not about building the robot. Every team builds a robot.
I lost count because I was distracted by Mr. Baker’s eye wear configuration and the body language by all parties present.
Let me count the ways I love this photo…
Seeing this picture just makes me wish I had a picture from North Star, when I got to tell Al his team’s Bill of Materials didn’t pass inspection
I’m not in the picture because I was laughing so hard that I fell down …
Funny thing is that I lead the LRI training for pneumatics and pointed this sort of thing out to all the regional LRI’s. Unfortunately Andy also was an instructor for another subject and didn’t get to hear my training.
It could have been worse. Not sure how, but I think you needed a few more LRIs in the huddle. It does show that the rules are the rules are the rules… and sooner or later we run into somebody that knows the ones we missed (or maybe they have something against purple ;-).
Yes, that true… but they were PURPLE, Bertucci! Purple!
Jane
If this is for real, it’s moments like these that makes me facepalm at FIRST. Rules like disallowing the painting of pneumatics really detracts from the overall goal of FIRST. This isn’t the way to inspire students to become engineers/scientists/etc. Way to drop the ball again, FIRST.