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Re: [moderated] Collaboration
FIRST made the only ruling that it could.
Imagine that you were at a regional and you have gotten yourself into a box on a problem. Someone from another team comes by and says, "Hey, I ran into that problem a couple of years ago. Here's what worked for us." He then sketches a part, grabs some materials from his team's stash, and submits it to the shop for fab.
If FIRST had ruled, "No collaborative design," this assistance would be illegal.
The same argument could be made about fabrication. If a person from one team visits another team's pits and drills a hole, solders a wire, etc., the "donation of labor" would be illegal.
I don't think any of us want to see the world where we cannot assist each other in design or fabrication.
Now, some of you may say, "But these cases are different from one team fabricating all or part of another team's robot." They're different in the scope of collaboration, not the kind.
So, FIRST had no choice but to rule that both design and fabrication collabroation are legal.
The ramifications of disallowing collaboration are far worse than the ramifications of allowing it.
What many of us find uncomfortable is the scope of collaboration. In the extreme, Team X can develop a super design, program a CNC machine to make it, build a bunch of fixtures, and bang out 100 copies in the six week build phase.
Somewhere in between those two extremes, no collaboration and mass production, lies the correct path. We, as a community, have to find that path. Some teams will err towards no collaboration, others will err towards mass production.
As long as we keep in mind the true goal, inspiring young people to pursue science and engineering, we should be able to get by.
The next question is, "How many engineers, fabricators, and programmers does a team really need in order to be competitive." Three is probably too low; thirty is probably too high. Regardless of the number, the organizational structure has to be well developed in order to make efficient use of its labor pool. I think you'll find that the most competitive teams consist of a moderate sized staff, most of whom have worked together and know each other's strengths and weaknesses.
The "quickie collaboration" of teams that don't really know each other is a disaster waiting to happen. The thing that should worry all of us is two teams that collaborate and end up in a power struggle. Those two teams will end up hating each other in the end. This would be very bad for FIRST.
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