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Originally Posted by Alan Anderson
I think the difference is obvious. The commercial part is available to everyone at the same price, and it does not favor any team in particular. The homemade off-season part is not available to everyone, and it can give a significant advantage to a team with the ability to spend extra time with adequate tools and testing.
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Alan,
You've hit the nail flush on the head.
If I spend 8 weeks in the fall designing and building a new transmission with my team, I've given my team a specific advantage that cannot be matched by any other team. This is because I now have a part that is unique to the competition. The rules we have force any unique parts to be fabricated during the 6 week build period. If I go out and purchase a prebuilt transmission, big deal, you can go buy one too.
As long as there is equal access to off the shelf parts, which the current rules ensure, there is no unfair advantage being gained by using prebuilt parts.
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It will be interesting what people come up with to gain a competitive edge.
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Exactly. If a whole bunch of teams start popping the AndyMark tranny under the hood, what do you think the veteran teams are going to do? They're not going to sit around and twiddle their thumbs. These teams are going to realize the gap is being shrunk, and double their efforts to create a more powerful transmission. I've been saying this for a while now, but it bears repeating.
Making technology like this readily available, furthers innovation. It's not in the nature of many people in this competition to sit around and accept the common solution. They will go out and improve upon it. I for one can't wait to see what kind of new transmission designs come out of this. The AndyMark gearbox is an amazing design. Just imagine what will happen when people focus their energy on outdoing it. Just think about that for a second. Isn't that exciting? I get inspired just contemplating it. But in the words of a good friend of mine, "maybe I'm just weird".
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On another note, teams have been using prebuilt mechanisms for years. I'm curious as where all this opposition was before Andy & Mark decided to start their company. I didn't hear anyone complaining aloud (although I'm sure someone did) when Team 47 used the Dewalt drill transmissions on their robot. The fact that Andy and Mark are affiliated with a FIRST team, should have no bearing on this situation. In fact, many FIRST engineers work for other FIRST suppliers.