[Andrew]

This seems like the best place for this suggestion...

Release the robot building rules in the pre-season and set up the Q&A system for feedback.

This will allow the FIRST community to flag all of the picky little inconsistencies in the rules before we get to build phase.

It will let us look up suppliers, et al. and get an idea of what parts are legal.

Since most veteran teams right now have big stock racks of FIRST parts, this change would help the newer teams.

Rather than placing restrictions (e.g. you can only buy this from supplier x), set up a Q&A specifically for legal parts. Only those parts are legal.

So, if a team asks, "Is the BEI yaw rate sensor legal," FIRST isn't bound by the "only available from digikey" rule. It can say yes or no and that becomes gospel.

This also allows teams to browse the Q&A and determine what parts are legal. So, if you didn't know what a "fizzbuster" is or where to get one or whether you could use it, you could browse the Q&A as the competition progresses and get the benefits of other teams' experiences.