does anyone know if its legal to have an on-board camera on the robot to be able to have an inside look of the robot? for recording use only not to assist during competition
Yes it is legal. Many teams have GoPro camera’s on their bot to record matches, while other teams just throw a regular camera 
Yes it’s legal!
ok thank you
We put a GoPro on our robot aswell, you get some awesome footage from them!
I imagine, i’ve seen some footage from other teams and i’ve got to admit that it looks impresive from an inside view
At events that I run we allow cameras that are securely mounted. I attempt to dissuade people that want to velcro on to the robot their iPhone, etc. I want them to understand that there is a good chance that their $600 iPhone will get smashed to bits.
Devices like the GoPro are a much better choice, go for one of them.
I know what you mean 
At Nationals I wanted to stick my brand new iPod Touch on the robot for a match, but decided against it because I could see another team going “Hey, there’s an iPod Touch strapped to their robot… Let’s go break it!!!”.
I didn’t, but I did attach it for a practice run on the practice field
Camera’s on robots are awesome! They give you an “in match” perspective.
Haha alright thank you for the advice…i was planning on using a GoPro anyways
hi guys, the link below takes you to a great mini camera, ideal for vex robots, we used it last year on our base, worked well (720x576) - standard def
footage is nice, has a crappy time stamp (can be removed)
it costs around £10.00 - but you can get the same one and a 16gb memory card from 7dayshop for about £16.00
this is the camera
this years plan is to put loads on - because i have 2 (from space project) … team 5119 owns 1, and a couple of team members have them … hoping to put them all together and put one on front of base, one on back … one on arm … one near grabber … etc … maybe one on the tower etc … dunno yet … but gonna go mad with filming this year, as we were too busy last year to film (shame) … only got about 20 pics in the end 
… but if we had the money … would defo put a gopro HD on it … lovely cameras
but if teams want to film a robots perspective, this camera is perfect !
I enjoyed watching Team 3057’s qual matches, filmed using an on-board camera.
I hate to be ‘that guy’, but you might want to check the official Q&A on this one:
https://vexforum.com/t/answered-camera/22133/1
It appears cameras on robots may not be allowed.
It appears cameras on robots may not be allowed.
I saw that thread and am somewhat confused as it’s in contradiction to last years ruling where they were legal.
The Q&A response has been updated after further thought. The key here is the use of a small camera. We’re giving teams some leeway here so you can do cool things with a camera. If teams start misusing the freedom in an effort to gain a functional advantage during the match, the allowance will be revoked.
awesome perspective
We found a cheap clip-on camera and recorded a match this past weekend. Nobody remembered to turn it on most of the time so we only got one video. I think it’s pretty cool to see video from that perspective although it can make you a bit dizzy.
We have like 2 hours of footage from a GoPro we ran on 127A. It was really, REALLY funny sometimes, and really stupid others. I have no idea where they went, though. I guess they’re on someone else’s computer, because I just spent 20 minutes searching two hard drives and found nothing.
They’re sort of useful to seeing how well your drivers aim. And awesome to watch afterwords. Just don’t do anything illegal with them.
I’m glad you enjoyed the footage (I’m the member of 3057 that came up with the idea of mounting a GoPro). I originally got the camera to record some Surf Sessions during the summer, but soon realized that I would be able to mount it on the robot once the season began. It was really useful for reviewing match strategy as well as creating some awesome promotional videos.