How much of a robot can be in different configurations. My students want to use a different configuration depending on the strengths or weaknesses of there alliance partners. As long as all configurations pass inspection prior to the match, it appears to be legal. I was hoping for clarification as 2 of the configurations make it look like a new robot. They are using the same Brain, controller and drivetrain. They are only swapping out arms and intake system.
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Official Q&A: VIQC 2019-2020: Squared Away
499: Limits on separate robot configurations
Answered by Game Design Committee
For the sake of brevity, we will not be quoting all of rules R1 and R2. However, we would strongly advising reviewing them in full alongside this response.
R2 is partially quoted as follows:
Given the above definitions, a minimum Robot for use in any VEX IQ Challenge event (including Robot Skills Challenges) must consist of subsystem 1 and 2 above. Thus, if you are swapping out an entire subsystem of either item 1 or 2, you have now created a second Robot and are no longer legal.
R1 is partially quoted as follows:
a. If significant changes are made to a Robot, it must be re-inspected before it will be allowed to participate in a Match.
b. If a Robot has multiple functional configurations, all possible configurations must be inspected before being used in competition.
It is impossible to provide a blanket response based on a snapshot description of a hypothetical Robot. However, configuration changes are permitted by R1 and R2, so long as they are confined to Subsystem 3. Therefore, in order to be legal, the following conditions must be met:
- The drivetrain does not change between configurations (Subsystem 1).
- The control system does not change between configurations (Subsystem 2).
- The Robot passes inspection in all possible configurations (R1-b).