Do we have to ship our battery with our robot?
Yes you do. 
Any ideas to the reason why we are to send it off?
Just seems like an unusual rule.
Anyway, I appreciate the quick response to my previous question.
yes, it is unusual.
and no we dont know why, maybe FIRST likes throwing curveballs.
Yeah it doesn’t seem like there’s a real reason for this. we haven’t had to do it in the past so it’s kind of puzzling to everyone.
if someone could give us a solid reason that would be grrrrreat!
It was that way last year.
wait what do you mean?
Say if i have 6 battery do i have to ship them all ?
He means that they had the same rule in place for last year.
Nope you just have to ship the two KOP batteries and you can bring additional batteries with you to the pits.
they do this because of the same reason they made us use new batteries this year
batteries get better with each use and so they don’t want teams to get an advantage by having better conditioned batteries
Are you sure? I don’t remember a requirement to ship the two KOP batteries with the robot in the past few years, and I don’t see it in the 2006 rules. Where should I be looking?
Sorry, My Bad. It says “When” I remembered as must.
I think Alan is aware of the 2007 rules; he was probably looking for the rules that were applicable last year, since John mentioned (and later retracted) that the requirement was the same last year.
Sorry Dom. This is not true. The batteries actually have a finite life. If you treat them as designed they have about 400 charge/discharge cycles. Treat them worse (like virtually all teams do) and that life is severely shortened.
it’s so they can charge more for the shipping. Note they also made us use thicker plywood this year. It is now 3/8" thick or 1/2" thick. This jsut means more money for an already hefty bill. Those things weight a lot you know. If they have to lug 20 more lbs worth of stuff, that is just that much more they can charge for in addition to the plywood change.