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Originally Posted by Bill Gold
If team X needed a 0.7M gear we would have to turn to PIC to obtain it (since they don’t have access to wire edm or a gear cutting machine). PIC usually has a 2-3 week lead time, but I’ve heard cases where teams haven’t gotten their gears until after the build period. Does this mean that Team A’s transmission that features a gear received from PIC is illegal to use because Team X didn’t get their part in time? I don’t think the answer is yes. I think it sucks for Team X that they will have to redesign their robot a little, but Team A shouldn’t be punished because their order was filled. I, personally, feel that any such company should be prepared for about 200 teams ordering their products.
Like Andrew said, this is going to cost a lot of money the way things are right now, and an even larger amount of money if FIRST changes the motors (as FIRST has done in the past with the FP motor, since it depends on the leftover stock at FP).
I really haven’t made up my mind on how I feel about this ready to use transmission purchasing. On one hand I think it’s a great idea, especially for teams how only have hacksaws, hand drills, and hammers. But like Dave and Raul said, I miss the good old days of everyone being forced to use the same catalog, or the same source. That made robots like CD 2000 and others so much more amazing, seeing what they did with the exact same catalog as I was looking at.
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Since PIC took nearly 5 weeks (last January) to ship something that they had originally promised in less than 2, would it be fair to order something in December, and ask PIC to please have it ready by January 10
th, and to ship it some time that week, so that it was received (and hence "obtained") no later than the 17
th? Or would it be yet another case of violating the spirit, but not the letter, of the law?
Or better still, if a team can buy from
any company, why not set up a shell company (e.g. "Team 188 Inc."), and instruct the company to buy the parts whenever it pleases, and have them in stock. Then the afternoon of the kickoff, it would sell the parts to the team for $1. This is obviously not a "nice" thing to do, but under the rules we're now formulating, it seems completely legal.
Also, back in the good old days, when a team couldn't get a gear they wanted from Small Parts, they had two options: re-engineer the thing, or EDM the gear (from universally allowed raw stock). Not every team has access to an EDM, and for a one-off job, it can be expensive. But if the choice were between scrapping the gearbox, and using an EDM, most teams would grudgingly accept the latter. But those teams without the means to choose the EDM would actually
suffer if the playing field were leveled in the proposed manner.