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Originally Posted by M. Krass
Would you all similarly object to teams that did not collaborate sharing parts from their machines with one another?
I understand that the collaboration among teams that is now taking place makes the situation you describe more plausible, but questions about a rule as you've described above should be answered without regard for 'collaboration'.
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In answer, yes I would object. I don't object to teams sharing kit parts, COTS parts, AndyMark parts, raw materials, etc. I just don't really agree with teams having more than 25 lbs of fabricated spare parts available to them because they know 5 other teams are using the same custom tranny that they are. If it's something you had to machine for your robot, you should be responsible for bringing the spares and you shouldn't be able to mooch a premade spare off another team because you used your 25 lbs on other things.
There was a discussion last year on the 25 lb limit that pretty much crystallized my understanding of it. Dave Lavery (I think) hypothesized a team that brought a 100 lb spare robot in a truck, and went out to grab different spare parts from it. They added up to less than 25lbs over all, but they clearly had over 25 lbs of parts available to them. 4 collaborating teams would have 100 lbs of
fabricated spares actually available to them. Ditto for a team getting a fabricated spare from some other team. Whats to prevent them from asking the other team to carry in and store spares for them, aside from GP? I think the whole intent is to strictly limit a team to just the 25 lbs of spares to keep the playing field level. And again note that I'm only talking about the restricted fabricated spares here.