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Official Q&A: VEX U Robotics Competition 2025-2026: Push Back
2654: VUR4: Does Profile or Manufacturing Process Determine Raw Stock Eligibility
<VUR3b> “Fabricated Parts may be made by applying the following manufacturing processes to legal Raw Stock: … Subtractive manufacturing processes, such as cutting, drilling, routing, or machining.” <VUR4> “Fabricated Parts must be made from legal Raw Stock. To be considered Raw Stock, the material must be purchased in one of the following forms before undergoing the fabrication processes listed in <VUR3>: Sheet, Solid Billet, Solid Bar, Hollow Bar, Solid Rod, Hollow Rod / Tube, Angle, U- / C-Channel, …” <VUR5> “The following material types are not considered Raw Stock, and are therefore not permitted: Any otherwise-legal Raw Stock that has been post-processed by drilling, machining, or otherwise removing material, Extrusions that do not fall under one of the categories listed in <VUR4>, …”
According to VUR4, Solid Bar stock would be considered a Raw Stock if it hasn’t undergone any of the processes listed in VUR3b. Many steel shafts like this are turned, ground, and/or polished to a certain tolerance: https://www.mcmaster.com/1346K12/. Also, many steel shafts are chamfered on the end to remove burrs. Since the solid bar is still in a cylindrical form factor, are these legal? To generalize this question, is it the manufacturing method used to make the raw stock or the profile of the raw stock that makes it a raw stock?
For example, it seems like a steel box tube is legal as a Hollow Bar raw stock: https://www.mcmaster.com/6527K296/. However, steel box tubes are made by bending and welding steel sheet. If steel box tube is legal, it appears as if it would be because it is a Hollow Bar profile, not because of how that profile was made.
One more example: VUR4 expressly lists 2/4 wood planks as legal Raw Stock under the Solid Bar profile. However, 2x4s are not extruded like aluminum is. They are cut from larger pieces of wood, and cutting is expressly listed as a form of manufacturing in VUR3b. This seems to indicate that it is the profile of the Raw Stock, not the manufacturing method used to make it, that is the determining factor of Raw Stock eligibility.
- Is it legal to use turned, ground, and/or polished round shafting like this (https://www.mcmaster.com/1346K12/) as Raw Stock on our robot?
- Is it the manufacturing process used to make a Raw Stock or the end-result profile of the Raw Stock that makes the material a Raw Stock or not?
Since the solid bar is still in a cylindrical form factor, are these legal?
Yes. We are intending to prevent secondary post-processing operations like drilling equally spaced holes, adding mounting patterns or other features, or altering the stock shape from being legal.
Is it legal to use turned, ground, and/or polished round shafting?
Yes.
Is it the manufacturing process used to make a Raw Stock or the end-result profile of the Raw Stock that makes the material a Raw Stock or not?
In general it should be assumed that the end-result profile of the Raw Stock, or the form the Team receives it in, is what is used to determine legality for VUR4.