Hello everyone,
I’ve seen a lot of teams use a ton of polycarbonate as skirts to cover their wheels. It seems that they use more polycarbonate than a 12 inch by 24 inch sheet. I was wondering if skirts counted as decorative pieces, or if they counted towards the limit.
Thank you
There’s already a post on this, and the general consensus was it is only considered nonfunctional if it is backed by vex legal parts, and would behave identically without the polycarbonate there.
Skirting is not decorative.
But that said, so far teams would need to show that all the polycarb used can be fitted into 12”x24”.
And so far most teams don’t have problem with keeping to this limit and still have a good skirting.
If its absence would change the way your robot interacts physically with its surroundings (field, game elements, competitors/ally) then it’s not purely decorative and would count against your allowance. An 18" square robot could have a (12" x 24")/(4 x 18")=4" deep skirt using the entire allowance.
If it is used in any competitive way, it is not decoration. Those teams could actually have the bottom of their poly skirt separated so that it acts as a scraper, and the rest of the poly skirt is mounted on aluminum plates, such that if it were removed, there would be no functional difference in performance.
However for now, if it affects the performance of the bot, assume that it is functional. Those skirts are often min-maxed by top teams to fit within the 12x24, and copycats are not so careful. Feel free to call out teams or talk to referees or inspectors about enforcing it. There is no reason you should be punished by following the rules.