I was in a competition last weekend and saw a robot with a plexiglass passive cone intake, it worked well but I questioned if it is legal. In the game manual there are specifics on what non vex parts we can use [R7] part f.
Since the passive intake is made of plastic does that mean it can be used, or does it count as non functional decoration making its illegal since its task is to pick up cones?
As long as the glass material was Polycarbonate or “Plexglass”, the intake is fine. Also, it can depend on how the intake utilized the plexiglass.
Plexiglass is an acrylic material, and you can’t use acrylic. You can use polycarbonate, and that’s probably what the passive intake was made of.
Everybody says Plexiglass (I do too, as long as the context is clear) because it’s a lot more common of a term. But in VEX, they usually mean polycarbonate, not plexiglass.
That’s why I call it Lexan
Probably a better idea; yeah. What with it being the correct type of material and all.
I’ll try that.
It isn’t lexan either (usually). The correct term is polycarbonate for ~95% of plastics used in vex.
Lexan is the name brand polycarbonate. It’s like calling a permanent marker a Sharpie
Though it has to be cut from a 12"x24" piece of lexan to be legal, though most claws shouldn’t be that big.
Lexan is generally not the right term since not everyone buys Lexan.
Most plastics used in VEX are polycarb.
I believe you can use delrin (acetal), for example, where you might not use polycarbonate to categorize it.
MANY plastics, most everything except “plexiglass” (acrylic, acrylite poly-methyl-methacrylate, PMMA, Lucite, and Perspex are some of the many names). The game manual gives an extensive list of legal plastics.
Polycarbonate (lexan) is the most popular in the overall robotics community, and it would be nice if people would quit calling all clear plastic “plexiglass.” During inspection, if a team mentions “plexiglass”, then the inspector has to dig deeper to ensure the plastic is actually legal, and not actually plexiglass.
ABS plastic is a good low-cost alternative if you don’t need as much rigidity as polycarbonate, or you need a slick surface. Acetal is a nice high-cost alternative if money is no object.