How do Judges Check Polycarbonate Usage

VEX V5 General Discussion
1

Hi there, I know that you have a limit on Polycarbonate usage on the robot (rule shown below).

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However, I was wondering how they actually check that you haven’t used more than the limit as they are not going to measure every square inch of the pieces especially if its in the robot. Also, I can not conceive that you will make a duplicate of every part to show it fits in the area.

Is this just a best guess by the judges or is there another way they use to check?

Thanks

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Please use correct terminology - “judges” have a specific role at a tournament which is to meet with teams, review notebooks, and determine judged awards.

The Head Inspector at a tournament will make sure robots conform to the requirements of the game - that they meet the sizing and materials requirements. The Head Referee may also conduct field inspections.

It is the team’s responsibility to present the Head Inspector enough information to determine whether the robot is legal. Teams who choose to use a lot of custom plastic may need to prove that they are below the limit, and may be asked by the Head Inspector or Head Referee to remove plastic to be legal in the Head Referee’s opinion. Many teams will have an entry in their engineering notebook that lays out all their custom plastic to show that it meets the requirements.

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First, Judges have nothing to do with robot inspection, that is a task for a Referee.

If you have any plastic sheet items in your robot build, you should also have a diagram documenting how those parts fit within a 12"x24" rectangle. At inspection, you should be able to point to each plastic part and check it off of the diagram.

If you have no way to prove that you are following R19, then you have no recourse if an inspection Referee disagrees with your claim that you meet the requirements.

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personally I would recommend you map out a scaled down version of you plastic on a piece of paper and bring it to inspection.

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@Mentor_355U covered a lot of it, but some teams have duplicate pieces (polycarb or cardboard) and arrange the in front of the inspectors to show they fit in the legal area.

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I’d recommend not scaling down your paper version. It is hard as an inspector to prove that your scaled drawing is exactly that piece there. If I’m looking at your robot and I think “man, that robot looks like it has too much”, I want to hold up the paper to pieces of your robot and see that they exactly match your template. It could lead to some bad places. If you give me the template, I hold it up to several larger pieces, and everything matches, it is much easier to make your case.

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Actually we normally use a in-between approach - we do not scale it down. But we will trace the polycarb pieces on a 12x24" piece of paper and show it to the inspector.

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I would highly reccomend tracing 1:1 shapes onto a 12x24 sheet, we use cardboard for it. Any size scaling to put it on a smaller sheet could be interpreted as trickery.

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I’d highly recommend doing it online and printing as it allows you to edit your plastic if things get added or removed.