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Originally Posted by Steve W
Do in part to my stupidity we also missed the window. I had miss read and thought that we had 10 hours after ship, before the next regional.
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I'm not going to let Steve take
all of the blame. I misinterpreted it too, despite having read and understood that rule, long, long ago. We were under the wholly mistaken impression that it worked like the other fix-it windows, that is, it could be taken until 5:00 on the thursday of the next event. (This is why everyone needs to read
all of the rules; even the guys who are well-versed in them can make mistakes.)
On the other hand, I wasn't planning to admit it to the world that we'd botched our timing....
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Originally Posted by Nuttyman54
3) If a team gets their spare parts made by a machine shop, does that shop have to complete the parts within the fix-it window?
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This is something that isn't specifically addressed in the rules, for the case where the machine shop is paid for its services as a non-sponsor (sponsors' employees are considered team members by 5.3.4.4, and are therefore apparently bound by competition rules). However, I think that it's implicit in 5.3.3 (<R15> to <R20>) that teams are not permitted to allow their agents (i.e. the non-sponsor machinists) to perform work outside of the legal periods, because the rules hinge upon the team's intent to use such parts in competition. While a non-competing entity can't violate a rule on its own, it is incumbent upon the team to ensure that if the intended purpose of the part is to be used in competition, that the part is fabricated during legal periods. For a contractor to work on the robot (or a part thereof) after the build season would require that it be uncrated, which violates <R16>. Even during a fix-it window, only
teams are allowed to manufacture parts—a contractor working on fabricated items (primary/spare/replacement/upgrade) destined for the robot during this period would violate <R16>.
It would be nice of FIRST to slip a paragraph into the rules next year describing the permitted scope of the contractor-team relationship in more detail. It isn't urgent, because I don't think that the intentions of the rule-writers are really that unclear—it's just that actually proving it through the rules requires a little bit of careful examination.