Am I misunderstanding rule R23 a. (Anodizing, painting, dyeing or changing the color of any legal VEX part is prohibited.) cuz i feel like its weird that people aren’t mad about this
most people haven’t read that deep into the game manual, but the people who have are angry.
No, you understood it right. And people are DEFINITELY mad about it.
No, you are right, nothing can be colored. And don’t worry, I think people are PLENTY mad at this.
This is highly unfortunate. It will stop some teams from making their robots theirs. It seems strange that VEX would make a rule like this.
I guess I was just in denial
you can’t use decorations that mimic Scoring Objects or Field Elements, as they might unfairly confuse your opponent’s vision and color sensors
Personally I think this is a phenomenal change by vex. Why would we not want every robot to look like the same, grayed out 4 bar lift? Nobody wants to see the tough Black/Red robots or the slick white-out ones. All robots should look the same and be indistinguishable.
Plus, why would we want students to learn the process of powered coating or plastic compounding (dyeing) It’s not like that’s ever used in modern industrial practices today…
Additionally, powered coating makes CADing your robot and pre planning every detail a necessity compared to teams who build on the fly. Wouldn’t want our students practicing CAD modeling either.
Good call vex way to make a bunch of money
If I wasn’t graduating this year, I’d be absolutely livid (though I am mad).
Originally most of us thought the ban on anodization would be limited to just China. However, @lacsap 's clarification on such a topic came true.
Very much a shame. First the GDC came after license plates, now they’re coming after coloring parts. I thought license plates was bad… this is gonna force orgs to throw out thousands of dollars of parts. Vast swaths of law-abiding teams used paint/anodization, wayyy more than 3D printed license plates. And I doubt that the “ooooooh a couple illegal titanium c-channels” problem was so widespread, so rampant, and provided such an overwhelming advantage to robots that the GDC had to nuke an entire aspect of team spirit and trash thousands of expensive parts.
They’re on the path to make V5RC like VIQ, where modifications of any part (even for fun for creativity, or for team spirit) is going to be outlawed. I wouldn’t be surprised if next season they got rid of all non-functional decorations altogether, and VEX starts selling “legal” decorations.
It is also extremely infuriating cause this might ban colored screws. Many teams love using the robosource colored screws, helps with quickly identifying screw sizes, making building, CAD-ing, and sorting much much easier. The wording of this rule is a bit vague (“legal VEX part”, not necessarily “legal Robosource part”), so hopefully the GDC in their quest to clamp down on team spirit lets us keep our convenient colored screws.
P.S. The manual’s example of a piece of aluminum plate being showed as a legal license plate is now illegal, since the GDC made coloring such plates illegal. Nice one guys.
I heard that some teams were painting or anodizing to cover up welds and stuff
Where is the game manual? I can’t find it.
Stop saying this. Colored parts don’t mimic game elements, most people make them black anyways. This was already a rule in past years.
Does powder coating metal also go with that???
They just want money it isn’t that strange. (teams who had colored parts have to buy new ones.)
should’ve at least given a heads up so our team didn’t drop hundreds anodizing for worlds and future years. great job vex.
The game is going to centered on the use of senors.
While I’m not pretending to understand the “why” behind the GDC decision on R23a, I do want to share a perspective that the teams most likely to be impacted by this are precisely the teams that the GDC is likely trying to protect.
Attached is a photo of a representative part from one of the teams I mentor. The part shown had been colored by a previous team, and then “handed down” to the org’s supply chest.
In smaller regions, it is not uncommon to see several bots that are a hodgepodge of old and new parts, some colored and some not. The unfortunate truth is that the designs of a lot of bots that won’t be competing at Worlds are driven not just by the constraints of the game manual, but also the constraints of the parts on hand.
Last year, I saw the negative impact of the 3d printed license plate rule at a middle school event. We had a team that didn’t pass inspection because of the 3d plate. (They weren’t trying to sneak a 3d plate by - they were just using their plate from last season) Luckily, another coach had a set of blank plates and we were able to get the team through inspection.
This year, if that same team were to show up with a couple black gears or a painted c-channel, that isn’t something that can easily be fixed the morning of the competition. And so, what is the right thing to do as a referee at the event? We can’t waive R23a, as that wouldn’t align with the code of conduct. But, not allowing the team to compete would be contrary to the spirit of VEX.
The speculation is that this rule is in place because some teams were abusing the coloring of parts to hide non-legal parts. The sad truth is that cheaters will find a new way to cheat. But, resource limited teams will bear the brunt of the rules intended to protect them from cheaters.
As a counter, I would suggest looking at how the G4 rule change was handled last year. The GDC was aware of widespread bot-copying. The way it was dealt with was very thoughtful and in the spirit of VEX - show your process in your engineering notebook.
The same process could be used here for colored parts. If you have “hand-me-down” parts that are colored, document that in your engineering notebook and you’re good to go. No team will miss out on a competition because of previously colored pieces.
Now, I will admit that I love seeing the creativity teams express with their bots, and I would love to see this continue in a way that aligns with the GDC’s goals. But I am nowhere near as passionate about keeping the cool colors as I am about making sure well meaning local teams aren’t negatively impacted.
sensors that nobody can afford and will be completely ineffective on the robot. For the April tags to be effective, you will likely need at least 3 sensors, which is 600, and almost certainly no team will spend 600 on sensors with minimal impact on the game.
Seems like paint-as-needed instead of paint-it-all-right-away was the better choice. My team aged out after Push Back, but we’d have been okay. Why do so many teams paint/anodize EVERYTHING ahead of time?
I’ve seen you spreading some unconfirmed information about the reasoning behind the banning of colored parts on other posts.
The Incorrect Posts
No Color Changing Rule - #2 by kkaidenn
New rules regarding cosmetics - #2 by kkaidenn
Why aren't we allowed to dyeing, painting, or anodizing legal Vex parts not allowerd anymore - #2 by kkaidenn
Override game manual - #2 by kkaidenn
You say that it’s to prevent “mimicking game elements”, that is not the intent of the rule. That is the intent of part D of the rule, not part A. Please read the manual closely before responding to several topics with incorrect information.
The GDC knows that 99.9999% of colored parts are not mimicking game elements. Most are black or deep scarlet. Heck, red VEX gears mimic game elements much much more than any painted/anodized c-channel I’ve ever seen.
Please also do your research. The GDC in High Stakes banned painting/anodizing vex parts in mainland China only because manufacturers were making illegal c-channels using other metals/alloys and painted them to mask the contraband from inspectors. I can’t speak to how many teams were doing this in China, or how it provided such an overwhelming advantage that your c-channels are a teensy bit stronger, but the GDC has decided to just punish everyone for it now.
Sorry if I’m being harsh on you, but you gave @Toxin , @6842A-APOLLO , @ryankuo12 , and @i-suck-at-vex blatantly incorrect answers. Other times I’d get miffed at one, but four separate occasions is a lot.