Our bot is designed to grab rings from the front, our expansion direction, and drop them off the back onto the high stakes. However, we have just realized this may count as having two directions of horizontal expansion. Will the pictured design pass inspection? (The claws can fully invert to fit within the initial 18x18x18 blueprint.) For reference, the base of the bot, on which the wheels are attached, is exactly 18x18
This is completely legal, as long as the claw does not go past the back of your robot, so it isn’t an expansion backwards.
That is the issue, as the tips of the claw extend past the back of the bot when the arm is pointed entirely vertical.
Then no, it is not legal.
I missed this at an inspection recently (my bad, MS event, I had my HS referee mindset…oops).
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heres a little loop around asusming that you dont go the full 24 inches in the forwards direction.you can stick a zip tie off the back so that it starts at that size
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Can you fit a permanent ‘extension’ on the back of the robot longer than the claw at the top of its travel?
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The problem is their robot occupies the full 18x18 horizontal footprint. So, they extend past front part of robot and then extend past rear side of robot. No wiggle room - two directions of horizontal expansion.
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Unfortunately no, since the base of our bot is already at the 18x18 inspection limit.
Yes, this is our issue. The only solution we’ve come up with is potentially moving the entire assembly to the rear so it never expands forwards, but the worry is this would almost certainly cause it to tip over when driven
You also want to make sure that it doesn’t go above the 18 in(45.72 cm) height limit otherwise it could be disqualified.
During match? Please refer to a specific Game Manual rule when making such assertions about vertical expansion.
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Only when starting, otherwise 32 inches is the vertical expansion limit when you are on the ground.