https://firstfrc.blob.core.windows.net/frc2016manuals/TeamUpdates/14.pdf
That is, in my opinion, an incredibly stupid rule change. For one thing, nobody can agree on what a robot is, and therefore it can only cause undue controversy (as if we needed any more). Additionally, the only time a team would do this was week 0.5, so it’s a bit of a moot point. Finally, if some team did bag their practise robot for a non-week 0.5 event, this totally screws them over. I do not like this one bit.
Check back later when someone has spent the time or money to circumvent this and another rule is made that still leaves the door open for someone to spend time or money to circumvent it just to see another rule made that…
they need to get rid of the bag and tag it just benefits teams that can afford to build 2 robots.
my team among that teams that build 2 robots i want to be able to spend that money elsewhere
In case anyone is wondering what specific drawings are being referenced:
GE-16019 on GE-16023 are the dividers between the defences
GE-16028 is the Cheval de Frise platform
GE-16038 is the Sally Port door assembly
GE-16178 is the Cheval de Frise platform assembly
GE-16181 and GE-16184 are the cleats at the bottom of the batter
GE-16185 is one of the batter segments
GE-16213 is the “roof” of the tower
and GE-16241 is a spacer for a U-bolt
Ohh well… Rule 5.5.900… 
Are you talking about the blue box in 5.5.2?
I do not like the new blue box explanation of what “enter” means. I understand it, and I largely agree with what it is trying to do, but I don’t believe it is right to twist the intent of the original in order to do it. The issue of a “spare parts robot” should have been addressed explicitly instead of wedged in to an unrelated spot.
Oh frabjous day! Finally we can just use any pressure regulator that’s stopped down to 60 psi instead of having to find one that is both rated for 120 psi and has a maximum output pressure of 60 psi.
To do that would be to acknowledge openly that the 6 week build season is a myth and that many teams have them.
Care to explain? 
I agree the wording of this ruling is a little weird and would like a better wording of bringing it to the event and what does that constitute. Does an event mean a specific venue or larger like the campus an event is taking place at? There are definitely some characters in FRC who could give teams a hard time depending on how they interpreted that rule and it becomes a different issue when you are traveling from a great distance to an event and won’t know how your robot faired until you get there.
So now instead of making an extra robot and putting it together and then bagging it we just make an extra robot don’t put it together and have those parts bagged?
But thou shalt not assemble them into the form of a robot while at the event or place them in a configuration that to a “reasonably astute observer” could resemble a robot.
Transformers robots in disguise…
Can we ban the words “reasonably astute observer” forever. It’s a bandaid when you can’t come up with a concrete rule and shouldn’t be in the rule book.
I would rather them say “Hey if you push this rule, HQ might tell you it’s illegal. Its a risk you are taking.” That’s basically what it means.
I actually impounded a spare robot as Lonestar LRI once. A team brought it in on Thursday morning to remove part of it for their competition robot. Since it was well over the withholding allowance, I told them to pull whatever they wanted or thought they needed right away (under withholding limits), then impounded the remainder for the rest of the regional. On account of the examples of it being illegal to keep a collection of spares in the parking lot and bring them in one at a time. They were understandably grumpy that they couldn’t just leave it in their trailer instead of me impounding it, but I’d been approached by people concerned that they’d brought an ENTIRE spare robot. So I had to deal with appearances as well as actual rules at that point. I’m pretty sure Norm’s forgiven me by now.
All of which is to say that practice robots, spare parts, and withholding allowances make for lots of complications. While the 5.5.2 blue box is a little clumsy, a separate rule would likely be just as awkward to cover cases like bringing a practice robot to practice with but not use for parts. You couldn’t possibly cover that case with any other existing rule, but writing up a rule for that specific case would likely miss others that I haven’t thought of. The blue box entirely rules out bringing a practice robot to help your team in any fashion, bagged or not, which is just a more general case of the specific case above.
Also, does the 5.5.2 blue box have some sort of unintended, deleterious consequences? It doesn’t seem so to me, so it seems like a pretty good update.
“Reasonably astute observer” = Whoever’s in the HQ hot seat this weekend. You’d better hope they’ve had their coffee this morning.
The biggest problem is that for teams that did bag two things that look like “robots” (not ROBOTs) for the intended purpose of having spare parts they will be in trouble for something that they had no idea was illegal and it’s already in the bag(s). Also the current rule does not prevent teams from assembling a 2nd robot at the event, you just can’t bring it to the event. You can still build it there from mechanisms that you bring.
Will there every be an obvious solution the GDC could implement to dismantle such an impressive myriad of self-constructed problems?
I’ll grant you that this is a broken update for anyone who’s bagged a “robot” for spare parts. Retroactively making things illegal is not cool. Also, I’ll admit I hadn’t considered that teams could actually bag an entire mostly complete robot as a spare, since that’s so far outside my team’s experience. In that light, a more targeted ruling to keep teams from swapping in an entire robot as a “repair” for a broken robot would be a better idea. Seeing as philosophers are still arguing about whether someone is the same “person” if you instantly swap all their atoms for identical but different ones, I don’t think I want to tackle that rule tonight…