We're designing our first beetleweight robot, it's a vertical spinner. The rules require that robots with spinners that meet two of: longer than 500mm, heavier than 20% of the total robot weight, or faster than 500RPM, need pre-approval from the event organisers.

How does this process work? It is pretty much a formality for competitions that allow spinners? Does the likelihood of getting approved scale with how much the weapon breaks these barriers? Does this occur over email? Are there tests that we can perform to show that the mechanism is safe, i.e. that the weapon is constrained to the axle and so cannot shoot off? The robot is currently a 3D printed prototype, can we get pre-approved for a competition before building the finished robot?

The current design of weapon is 363g i.e. 24% of max weight, but that doesn't include the axle, pulleys, fasteners or bearings - which would all add some considerable weight - so maybe as much as 450g of moving mass. The final speed also isn't set, but I believe ~5000RPM is somewhat typical of similar robots.

I couldn't find a similar post on here on this subject, although I'm sure others have asked. I'm not sure how to make best use of the search function.