[Donut]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

IMO, we should just limit it to parts that enter the venue as COTS. Easy to understand and enforce, still allows for many useful types of cheesecake, but it kills the "we build a mechanism and you bring a chassis to fit it" meta-game.

This, mostly. If you can build an entire new mechanism from parts while at the competition I think you should reap the benefits, as that is no small task even for a powerhouse. Plus that still allows robots to be built collaboratively at the competition (due to theft, shipping issues, total robot destruction, etc).

The only gray area to me is the withholding allowance. For those who do not want pre-built mechanisms at all it would be cumbersome to enforce that withholding allowance parts only make it onto the robot of the team that brought them. I'm fine with withholding parts going wherever but can understand that 35 lbs is a lot of weight to work with.