Answered: Motor Quickswap Legality

VEX Robotics Competition Discussion VRC > Starstruck (16/17)
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So I was at a recent competition (Austin Starstruck) and I was about half done explaining to another team how our motor quickswap thing works. Then, one of the official refs from the REC comes up and we were told that ziptieing the motors for the purpose of being able to quickswap gears inside them is technically illegal.

If you aren’t aware of what I’m talking about, this is what I mean.
Basically, you take out the 4 motor screws on the inside of the motor, and then zip tie the two parts together. This allows you to, when you need to, move the two zip ties away and swap out the internal gearing or even replace the motor entirely. The zip ties keep the motor secure and I have yet to see a case of them failing. Many teams do this, and I was inspired by some of the 400 teams in my area to do the same.

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Basically, the reasoning was, according to his interpretation of the rules, removing the screws is a modification of an electrical component and all electrical components on the robot must be "in a condition as if they were just taken out of the box. " He said that for this tournament, he wouldn’t do anything major (which was very kind of him, thank you!) but for states and worlds he recommends we do not use this. I sympathize with this reasoning but at the same time I am against it. Here’s why:

  1. Is it really a modification? Removing motor screws is not only allowed but even encouraged in Vex Robotics Design to customize internal motor gearing. And of course, in this process, you often do loose motor screws. Many teams do utilize motors with a screw missing or 2. By ruling this illegal it would also imply that those motors are also illegal and would be wasted.

  2. We do not enhance performance. By simply ziptieing motor parts together we do not experience any advantages over screwing them in. It is simply for the sake of ease of use. Who wouldn’t wanna get rid of a headache?

Thank you reviewing this information. Hopefully you can offer an official ruling.
Everyone else, please feel free to make an unofficial threads talking about the topic. I would love to hear you all’s input.
Phantom 285A

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First off, thank you for addressing this in a respectful manner with your REC Foundation representative. The logic they used was sound and this was handled in a very positive way.

What you have described is legal. Teams are allowed to remove the screws to change the internal gearing. As you said, many teams lose these screws in the process. We do not want to make teams replace entire motors due to lost screws.

Teams are allowed to use motors that are missing the motor screws. However, we do encourage teams to keep all four screws in their motors, as we have seen zip ties fail in the past causing motors to come open mid match. This is not a fun experience for the teams involved.