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Originally Posted by fox46
I think this new rule with respect to demonstrations violates FIRST's own "third party observer" rule. How would you explain it to your grandmother that you can't keep working on or testing the robot because it's beyond "stop build day" and in its bag...... Then you turn around and unbag it to drive it around. I miss the days when a FedEx truck would show up and take the robot away from you. Much less chance for teams to pull post-stop-build-day shenanigans.
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I would simply explain to her FIRST's name - For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. Yes, we can't work on the robot or use it for driver practice. But in order to further inspiration and get the word out in the community we have the robot unbagged for a demonstration where someone other than our drivers are controlling it.
The real fact I think you're missing is that this rule is nothing new. Ever since Bag and Tag started teams have been e-mailing FIRST asking if they can unbag for a demonstration event. And FIRST has replied "Yes! print out this e-mail and show it to the LRI at your next event so he knows you got permission for the unbag period". All this does is remove the hassle and requirement for teams to e-mail FIRST and for LRI's to deal with teams forgetting to bring the e-mailed permission with them to an event.
Wait, it does do one more thing... it perhaps gets our robots out there in the community more, as more teams know about this "special" demonstration unbagging. It makes demos more effective, increases public awareness, and helps to inspire the community that much more than we've had in the past. Personally, any time I see these types of unbag periods, I've had a great time asking the team about their event and how it helped them, and the students have loved talking about it. It's not about shenanigans - it's about the mission of FIRST.