Quote:
Originally Posted by efoote868
What I'm driving at is that pre-selection and during qualifications, go wild, help each other out as much as you can. Post selection I don't think a team should be allowed to strip out large parts of their alliance's robot and then bolt on their own solution to the game; but they should be allowed to help work to improve the other team's robot.
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Yea, I think this is the grey area that makes me cringe... as I'm not sure how to write a rule for it.
There is a very important distinction to me about an attitude in post alliance selection, saying "I am looking at your robot, and I am going to work with you to make you as effective as possible for our alliance, even if it means drastic changes or a limited role". That has value as a teaching/inspirational moment.
If you have brought a pre-built mechanism/passive element that can be bolted onto almost any donor robot, and their only thing that third partner brings to the table is a donor robot and ability to hit a button (or run an auton routine)... the intent of bringing said mechanism in on Thursday really seems much more stilted towards providing your elimination alliance with an advantage, not general goodwill. I also know that we are all quite competitive, and as teams continue to make more modular designs and get better at integration... without a rule prohibiting it, it is tempting to bring these bolt on solutions.
I actually like the idea of doing whatever you want in qualification matches, or maybe even cutting it off Friday evening. If you want to bring a pre-built mechanism in your bag or withholding to help another donor robot succeed... knock yourself out. Make them awesome. However, other teams can scout what you did... and pick up that now awesome robot.
If you want to modify a robot on Saturday, it needs to be from raw materials or unmodified COTS parts.
I'm sure that has 1000 issues wrong with it, but it feels alot better?