Our robot has 6 inch rubber bands which stretch out to about 12 inches. Just before the alliance set today, a man who said he ran inspections at worlds told me that I need to not be using larch rubber bands (“64’s, not 128’s”) because Vex doesn’t make rubber bands that large. Can this be confirmed or denied?
Rubber bands must be either #32 or #64
as long as they’re #32 or #64 they’re good right? Material doesnt matter? we almost got dqed because we’re using the silicone ones.
R5d. Any parts which are identical to legal VEX parts are permitted. For the purposes of this rule,
products which are identical in all ways except for color are permissible. It is up to inspectors to
determine whether a component is “identical” to an official VEX component.
Identical rubber bands would be those of the same available sizes (32 and 64) made of the same materials. If I were an inspector and the question came up, you’d have to be able to show me somehow that the ones you have are basically identical. Wrong sizes are definitely a solid “no, illegal”.
Looking at the EDR rubber band link (Rubber Bands - VEX Robotics), it appears that vex is now selling silicone rubber bands (I think that’s new - I don’t remember seeing those last season??). Therefore, that material should now be legal. If an inspector asks, you should be able to bring that info up from the vex website and then be able to show that the ones you purchased are also silicone and therefore the same material (keep the bag or a printout of the exact purchased item).
I got the ones from vex. The issue they had was that they were iq and a diff material. Thanks for info!
This would be the head ref’s decision. If the bands add additional functionality that would not be possible with the VEX official rubber bands, then they would probably be deemed illegal. I would think that in most cases, using rubber bands that are that much bigger than official ones would be different.
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I just realized the link above was IQ and worried if that was the same for EDR. Fortunately, it is!
Functionality is the rule for commodity hardware (screws, nuts, washers); things like rubber bands must be identical (in all but color).
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