My team was planning on using red plexiglass to make our robot look nice but were wondering if it would interfere with color sensors. We don’t use them and want to know if they’ll be picked up on the sensor.
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Most important, plexiglas is an illegal material (see R-10 of the game manual), so you should consider something else that is actually legal. Most common plastic is polycarbonate, but there are other options too.
R-13d is the rule you will need to consider about interfering with color sensors. Generally, unless you are deliberately attempting to mimic a field element, I’ve never seen/heard of problems, as few teams use color sensors anyway, and if so, they are pretty specific as to what they are looking for.
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by plexi do you meen lexan? its legal
“Plexiglass” is a brand name for PMMA, also commonly called “acrylic”. PMMA will shatter and is not a legal plastic in VRC.
“Lexan” is a brand name for polycarbonate; another brand name is “Makrolon”. Polycarbonate is non-shattering and legal in VRC, provided you get a sheet of the right thickness and size.
“Plexiglass” and “Lexan” are often used interchangeably in everyday speech, but this is an area where the distinction between the two is important — one is safe and legal for use on VRC robots; the other is not.
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@holbrook gives a good explanation of the differences and maybe at the expense of conclusion - Plexiglass is NEVER legal
just to leave no doubt - but as explained - shattering plastic is dangerous to team and anyone near field should it fail …
So NO plexiglass - and if you can not distinguish the difference, DON’T use it.
thank you for attending TEDtalk-plastics
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@lacsap @holbrook @muradmalik @kmmohn
Sorry for the confusion, I should have just said lexan but since I was short at time plexiglass was the only thing that came to my head. This question was asking about lexan not plexiglass. Again sorry for the confusion
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