I understand that teams should not modify electronics to gain an unfair advantage. What I wonder is, why can’t the teams with the ability to fix their electronics to an identical state do so without violating the rules?
realistically, skilled repairs will be undetectable by anyone who looks, and I’ve yet to see anyone take apart a V5 brain to see all the port chips to make sure that they haven’t been replaced during an inspection…
RECF/VEX/RobotOverlords withholding this method of being sustainable and efficient seem to miss a big idea in robotics. If we’re supposed to be innovating and making things better, why can’t we at least fix what we have?
I would rather shell out for a digikey order and spend half an hour soldering than spend $250 on a new V5 brain… besides, once we’re able to fix our VEX V5 equipment, will there really be a reason to buy from them anymore? (yes, but still… less money in their pocket)
Given the recent events at VEX, I doubt they have any intent on making this change. As unfortunate as it is, companies do what they are meant to, make money. Allowing you to repair your own products instead of buying replacements in a locked ecosystem is the modern model.
this is very unfortunately true… I wonder what realistically consequences would be for teams who perform the repairs well… wash flux off… use exact components (which would be the expectation even if it were permitted, tbh… even if components are flawed.
The way I see it, Apple tried to keep me from fixing my stuff. I did anyways. I wish that same principle could be applied to VEX…