Thanks for all the feedback, guys. As you might guess, brian and I, being the two CADders on the team, were discussing this.
In my opinion, i think it needs to be done from scratch starting day 1. R22 was a big reason for my opinion, as Alan discussed earlier. R22 goes on past what Alan posted to further refute the aforementioned "plan".
The main reason for this thread is because we have a sponsor that can take a converted CAD file, and laser cut it and make the flanges (not laser flanges
), assuming we use sheet metal. We did it that way this year for our Meccanum drivetrain, and we really liked it. And, knowing my team, there's a good chance a lot of people will strongly push for the same drivetrain as last year. So, that brought up the thought of, would we be allowed to just re-order the same part we made last year? My conclusion was no.
Then the possibility of it being a COTS item was brought into play. Brian pointed out a rule concerning COTS to prove it could be ok:
Quote:
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For the purposes of the FRC, generally available software modules obtained from open sources (e.g. professional publications, commonly used FRC community accessible web resources, industry source code repositories, etc.) ... shall be considered COTS items.
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So, he argued that if we "release" an open source CAD of our drivetrain to the public (CD), then its considered a COTS item. That kind of makes sense to me, but i feel like that was not FIRST's intent.
Nonetheless, my plan was just to remake it from scratch, and add some "improvements", using the previous one as a reference. It'd only take a day tops. That way you made this design during the Build Season. In my opinion, that would be no different than a team reconstructing a replica drivetrain out of aluminum box that they used the previous year, or remaking an arm like 233 and 148 did (in NO way am i trying to offend them) .
I think its better safe than sorry, and the most GP solution to this. As for whether the 2011 rules are still in effect, i would argue that it doesn't matter if those are the rules that HAVE to be followed; rather, those are the rules that should be
respected, and abided by, whether or not they remain in effect.