[JackN]

I am a big supporter of using and improving on designs from previous years. This season when we were debating potential designs our team could pursue, my first thought was to go back to 2007 and look at what worked then. I suggested a 4-Bar Linkage arm similar to what 1902 did, because I truly thought that it was one of the best, most simple and effective designs from the season. Our team when in a different direction than that, but one that shares some similarities to 67 from that season. I don't know if we were directly influenced by them in our design (I don't handle any actual mechanical work just give strategy advice and game analysis to the mechanical team), but looking at our robot this year and theirs from 2007, you can't help but see some similarities.

As for in season design "stealing", I think there is some amount that is acceptable. Full robot "stealing" is certainly not the way I would go about it. There is room for using designs that other teams came up with if you adapt and learn from them. We had issues with our minibot deployment at the Kettering District. Due to not having enough to revise the idea (my one suggestion that made it on our robot...), our driver had roughly a half-inch in which he could line up and successfully deploy our minibot. Team 33 had an alignment solution that our minibot team loved, so after the event we spent the next two weeks prototyping and designing a device similar to what they used. We went through at least three iterations of this design (that I know of, again I don't personally work on these things, I just walk in our build room to check on how things are going) before finalizing what we mounted on our robot last night.

Just as strategies and games evolve throughout a season, robots will as well. Teams will adapt designs or different plans based on what they see that works. If that is a minibot design, an arm design, a ball manipulator, or an entire robot design people will use what they see works and attempt to make it better.