Quote:
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• At Events: Teams are allowed to repair, modify or upgrade their competition robots while participating in a FRC event. They may do so only during the period starting with the opening of the Pit area on Thursday and ending at 4:00PM on Saturday. Work may be done on-site in the Pit or at any facility made available to all teams at the event, e.g., in a team’s repair trailer or a local team’s shop offered to all teams to use.
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I'll bite. I think it's plausibly legal. This section of the rule clearly defines the period you're allowed to work on the robot as starting thursday and extending all the way to saturday, so time isn't an issue, unless you're assuming that "while participating" restricts the time to while you're at the event. I don't think it does, because just after that, the period is specifically noted.
Also, I think the last sentence implies that you are allowed to take parts off site to work on them. A local team's shop is clearly not expected to be on site, or anywhere in walking distance of the site. So I think the contention that you're not allowed to take parts off-site is just being assumed because it rarely happens. I don't think the rules explictly say this anywhere, but proving me wrong would obviously sink my agrument.
The stated workshop here is "the hotel". If this is being done in the lobby of the hotel, to the great consternation of the staff, I'm sure, then it's difficult to argue that this space isn't freely and publicly available to all teams. I don't know that advertising has that much to do with things, really. If it does, then the issue would still remain if Bluateam ran around announcing "We're gonna go work on our robot in our hotel lobby! Anyone else that wants to work there is more than welcome to come!"
So, I realize this might seem like an annoying and unfair conclusion, but I think it stems from a very reasonable reading of the rules. I don't think arguments that "It's implied that such-and-such" or "Teams just aren't expected to blah-blah" are really fair. A rookie team showing up at their first event would have little or no prior knowledge of how things typically go and what's customary. I don't think arguing from vague intent and unspoken tradition makes rules any clearer.