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Official Q&A: VRC 2023-2024: Over Under

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1847: <R1> Legality of switching motors between subsystems

5776E
29-Dec-2023

What is the legality of having more than 8 motor caps, with the intention of being able to switch one of the motors to a different mechanism? For example: switching a motor to a different subsystem for skills, then switching it back for matches, while remaining under the 88W limit. I have seen teams do this and not get called out for it, but none are fully clear about the legality of it.

Rule <R1c> states

Teams may not switch back and forth between multiple Robots during a competition. This includes using different Robots for Skills Challenges, Qualification Matches and/or Elimination Matches.

However, if no subsystems are being modified, even though the motor allocation is, would it be considered "switching between multiple Robots"?

R1  
Answered by committee
11-Jan-2024

Yes, this would be legal. The red box in <R1> includes the following note:

To help determine if a Robot is a “separate Robot” or not, use the subsystem definitions found in <R1>. Above that, use common sense as referenced in <G3>. If you can place two Robots on a table next to each other, and they look like two separate legal/complete Robots (i.e., each has the 3 subsystems defined by <R1>), then they are two Robots. Trying to decide if changing a screw, a wheel, or a microcontroller constitutes a separate Robot is missing the intent and spirit of this rule.

To avoid any confusion, the Robot should be inspected in both configurations, per <R3>.

b. All possible functional Robot configurations must be inspected before being used in competition. This especially pertains to modular or swappable mechanisms (per <R1>) and Match starting configurations/sizes (per <R4>).