Official Q&A: VEX IQ Robotics Competition 2025-2026: Mix & Match

I was talking with a coach who's team's robot has an elevator. He said they are using a sharpie to mark on the beams where to stop the elevator. My gut reaction was, "Oooh... I think that would be considered a functional decoration or modifying a part and thus would be illegal." My research and thoughts are as follows:

<R15d> Prohibited Items: Tape and/or any other material that adheres to or changes a legal part, other than non-functional decorations as permitted by <R17>. *** Does the Sharpie "adhere" to the part? Does it "change a legal part?" I think we can argue that it does since it is placed for a competitive purpose. <R17> Decorations are allowed. Teams may add non-functional decorations, provided that they do not affect Robot performance in any significant way or affect the outcome of the Match. *** Does this sharpie "decoration" affect performance or the outcome of the Match? Again, I think we can argue that it does. b. To be considered “non-functional,” any decorations must be backed by legal materials that provide the same functionality. A simple way to check this is to determine if removing the decoration would impact the performance of the Robot in any way. *** Performing this simple check would impact the team's ability to drive the robot but not the robot's performance, per se, so is that "impacting the performance of the robot?" I feel that it is.

In conclusion, I feel that adding Sharpie to help you align something is illegal. BUT at the same time, I feel nit-picky for possibly reading too much into the rules I referenced, since they seem written to address a physical part addition and not some writing on a beam AND because I received mixed answers when I posted on the Referee forum on Facebook.

So the net question of all this is: Is marking a part on the robot with a sharpie/pen to aid a driver in operating the robot illegal?