[Kris Verdeyen]

Are there questions that the Q/A folks will simply refuse to answer? I didn't pay much attention to the Q/A board last year, so I don't know if we ended the season up with questions still in the queue, other than those that were previously answered, or explained thourougly in the rules, or stupid.

I hate to say this, but the more that FIRST drags its feet answering this one, the more the rule looks deliberately vague. It appears as though it was written specifically so that FIRST could test the waters on the issue of practice robots while leaving themselves an "out" once the season comes.

Look at it this way:
If they wanted, absolutely, for us to not make practice robots, they could have said, "It is illegal for a team to practice the game with a robot in the time between ship and their regional."

If, on the other hand, they had not wanted us to work on the actual competition robot between ship and the regional, well, then no rule change would have been needed at all. That's always been the case.

The only reason for FIRST to have included this rule, and worded it the way they did is as a compromise. The rules committee had both pro- and anti- practice robot factions who couldn't agree on one of the above versions, and this muddy middle of a rule is what resulted. Now that their indecision has been pointed out, they don't want to anger either side by issuing a ruling, so they're staying mum. I can't say I blame them.