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Unread 03-01-2013, 13:41
Wayne TenBrink's Avatar
Wayne TenBrink Wayne TenBrink is offline
<< (2008 Game Piece)
FRC #1918 (NC Gears)
Team Role: Engineer
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Rookie Year: 2006
Location: Fremont, MI, USA
Posts: 528
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Re: Philosophies on design reuse

I would go one step further and argue that some amount of unregulated (predesigned and/or prefabricated) components/mechanisms should be allowed. Perhaps 10 or 20 lb (analagous to the withholding allowance) and only on the condition that you share the design and declare the items on the BOM.

Teams would still need to build a new robot every year, but at least they would benefit from the same advantages you get with buying a COTS mechanism. With all the FRC-specific COTS items on the market today, why invest time and money into building something that you can only use once, when you can buy a comparable unit and re-use it? Examples include gearboxes, swerve mechanisms, and now even entire drive modules.

In many cases, using a pre-designed or pre-fabricated mechanism would be more of a detriment than a benefit, because it would involve compromising function for convenience.

The current rules made more sense when every team had to make every mechanism because nobody could buy them. That isn't so true any more, and the FRC-COTS market is likely to grow. This might reduce the artificial exercise of lawyering our way around rules that are not and cannot be uniformly enforced in the first place.
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NC Gears (Newaygo County Geeks Engineering Awesome Robotic Solutions)

FRC 1918 (Competing at St. Joseph and West MI in 2017)
FTC 6043 & 7911