Quote:
Originally Posted by neshera
1) Seriously? You don't see having that immediate access to all/any of your team's spare parts, COTS or fabricated, constitutes an unfair advantage? What do you think a team competing against you from, say, Mexico would make of this? What about a team that can't afford a big trailer to park in the parking lot? This is EXACTLY why the "45 pound rule" exists. Even in years where lots of robot parts break. Especially in years where lots of robot parts break.
2) 1 to 1 replacement issue: I understand from your post you recognize this is just what you would like, not what the rules currently state. I trust you and your team are professional enough to abide by the rules as they are, not as you think they should be. 
But let me tell you why I think the rule should stand: teams with less resources to stockpile spare parts, teams that can't afford to build a second/practice robot, teams that have to travel and ship their parts from great distances - these teams want to compete with you based on your smarts and ingenuity, not on how much money you have or how close you happen to be to a regional venue.
When you explain FRC to someone new, and explain that everyone in the world finds out the game at the exact same time, and has the exact same six weeks to build their robot, and has to stay in the same budget for the robot, and has to repair their robots with what they have on hand at the venue - they get it. They get why FIRST if fair. And they are impressed that we do all of that on an honor system. It's one of the biggest concepts we impress on rookie students and parents. It's part of our culture - our team's culture, and our FIRST culture. |
Let me reiterate what I said and hope that you can read it this time.
Fact: We have a lab at Northeastern University
Fact: All of our stuff is there
Fact: There is an event at Northeastern University
Fact: We are competing at that event
Based on the logic presented earlier in this thread it would stand to reason that by the very virtue of these facts 125 is breaking the rules since we have > 45 lbs of fabricated parts at the venue (specifically all of our prototypes, test chassis, old robots, replacement parts, broken parts... heck, I think we have close to 15 lbs in prototype launcher forks alone).
The only solution I could see to this issue (because under that reading of the rules it is an issue and I would, of course, need to rectify it) would be to remove all of the offending parts from my lab. Do you understand why I have an issue with this notion?
This isn't even approaching the issue that our entire machine shop is available to us at the venue which I assume would also fall under your statement of unfair.
I'll leave the exercise of redoing this with our shop 5 minutes across the street from the venue (or 5 miles) as you will have the same issue with fairness. To which I will simply say, "So?". FIRST isn't fair and neither is life. Legal situation - I bring in 30 spare VP versaplanetaries of various configurations because I want to change my intake roller speed. That's likely over $1000 in parts. Nowhere is that on my BOM. But team 5905 that doesn't have a large budget and is 4 students out of a dad's garage can't do it. And the team from Mexico certainly can't, shipping would be silly on that. You gonna tell me I can't do that next? It's the EXACT same situation.
I'm going to ignore the thinly veiled assertion that I am planning on breaking rules.