[GreyingJay]

Originally Posted by MegaAlberto

Team 4063 is well known for helping team with their robots between matches when they are in need, whether it be donating spare parts, lending tools, etc. Once in a while, we'll see a team that comes to a regional with no robot built in the entire season (for reasons unknown to us because we consider it rude to ask why that's the case), and those teams are usually the ones we prioritize helping, so we'll help them build a robot from the ground up. So the question is, would this be considered cheesecaking or not? Last year we helped a team build a defensive robot so they will at least have the opportunity to compete, but we did it for no strategic reason whatsoever, just good ol' Gracious Professionalism. So a concern for us is, indeed, how far is too far? In a sense we are building an entire robot for them (with the team's actual support and help, of course, and usually that team will tell us what their robot should contain) and if any restrictions were made, we would no longer be able to do this. Also people could try to bend the rules by saying they're doing something like what we do, but who knows? It's hard to even take this poll baring our team's philosophy in mind. It's a shame to see something like cheesecaking in a program that aspires for professionalism, which only means we still have ways to go.

I always got the sense that cheesecaking implied that the help you give to the other team has some sort of quid pro quo attached to it, e.g. "I'll help you modify your robot / I'll choose you for my alliance if those modifications do what I want/need". If your motivation is simply "I'll help you because I want to help / I feel bad you have no robot / it's the right thing to do" then I don't consider that cheesecaking.