[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

David, you know the answer, don't you? If you are developing code for the purpose of making this year's robot perform better, you are violating the spirit of the rules. We are all supposed to be engineers, not lawyers. The intent of the rules is clear: the robot is done -- stop working. Changing variable or function names is the worst sort of robot lawyering -- using cheap tricks to get around the spirit of the game. Go ahead and obsess about the robot all you want, but if you are writing code that you think will make this year's robot more successful, you are (IMO) in clear violation of gracious professionalism.

Perhaps we should borrow from something the Boy Scouts: a FIRSTer is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, and cheerful. (I'll let you off the hook for thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.)

I do indeed know the right answer. The last thing I'd want to do would be violate not only the letter, but also the spirit of the rules. Please understand why I asked the question in the earlier the way I did.

I had posted the original Q&A question regarding software work outside of FIX-IT WINDOWS and competitions after Dave Lavery suggested that the interpretation this year might be different than last year. Indeed, it is different. Last year, you could write code until the twinkie supply was depleted in town and test it on the practice robot then recreate the changes at the competition. Not so this year. As I stated in my response to seanwitte, we intend to write and test code ONLY in FIX-IT WINDOWS and competitions.

I think the recent Q&A response to the question regarding "practice" software for the practice robot serves only to cloud the issue.