I think I have found a way to circumvent the Q&A ruling a bit. As mentioned earlier in this thread, rule R11 specifies that a team may consider machinists to be "members" of their team "solely through the donation of fabrication labor":
Quote:
|
It is in the best interests of the Teams and FIRST to form relationships with as many organizations as possible. Teams are encouraged to be expansive in recruiting and including organizations in their team, as that exposes more people and organizations to FIRST. Recognizing supporting companies as Sponsors of, and members in, the Team is encouraged, even if the involvement of the Sponsor is solely through the donation of fabrication labor.
|
I don't think anyone could argue that many teams are non-profit companies. Many have 501(c)3 status's of their own, sell merchandise, pay employees, etc. Therefore, as long as members of a given team provide labor to the receiving team, they may be counted as members of the receiving team. FIRST made the rule intentionally flexible. Therefore the section of R1:
Quote:
|
The ROBOT must be built by the FRC Team to perform specific tasks when competing in RECYCLE RUSH
|
is easily satisfied.
Clearly, this line of thinking is lawyering the rules. I think we all have a general idea of what the GDC was going for and I think we probably agree that the Q&A appears to be more restrictive than the GDC intended. But if we take the above idea seriously, I don't see much of an issue with it. FIRST encourages teams to make connections with organizations that have capabilities greater than the team. I can't imagine FIRST would disallow the "machinists" mentioned in R11 to fabricate something for a team in that team's own pit. Why should that not extend to other teams wanting to fabricate things?