Now that the ruling on WPI's question about vacuum has officially expanded pneumatics to include vacuum devices as well as pressure devices, are commercially available suction cups, such as those typically used for robotic material handling legal for use, and if so, does attaching a suction cup to a field element violate SG-10?
This Q&A is now read-only
Official Q&A: VEXU 2018-2019: Turning Point
123: Vacuum cups for VEX-U and SG-10.
Answered by Game Design Committee
Commercially available suction cups would be considered commercially available pneumatic devices, if integrated with a legal VEX U pneumatic system and provided that no other rules are violated in the process.
Using these suction cups to attach to a field element would be considered a violation of <SG10>.
<SG10> Don’t clamp your Robot to the field. Robots may not intentionally grasp, grapple or attach to any Field Elements, including the Platforms. Strategies with mechanisms that react against multiple sides of a Field Element in an effort to latch or clamp onto said Field Element are prohibited. The intent of this rule is to prevent Teams from both unintentionally damaging the field and/or from anchoring themselves to the field.