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Originally Posted by Ken Patton
I think this is a discussion that needs to be had, and hopefully FIRST will follow it. I agree with Rob's and Kevin's comments. We're already at the point where such things as swapping in parts from another team with an identical robot can happen.
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I agree wholeheartedly with Ken. As most of you know, I'm a firm believer in collaboration. Ken and I had a good discussion on the possible problems with collaboration in Toronto, and this current gray area is one of them. For collaboration to proceed in FIRST, the teams who participate must eliminate any possible conflicts in interest. The collaborations should be to help team development and growth, not an excuse to circumvent existing rules.
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Originally Posted by Ken Patton
1. Is it okay for a team to pull parts from a still-competing robot to keep another still-competing robot running?
2. Is it okay for a team to pull parts from an eliminated robot to keep another still-competing robot running?
3. Is it okay for a team to pull parts from the 25 lb of spares brought in by another team? Whose 25 lb is it then?
4. Is it okay for N teams with clones to pre-plan their 25 lbs of spares so that they each have essentially 25*N lbs of spares to work with should one of the teams need them?
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I would answer "No" to all four questions. The only caveat, is for questions 1 & 2. If a team would like to pull a COTS or KOP part off their robot to give to another team, more power to them. At the Great Lakes Regional, the triplets came to the event with 16 belts between our three robots. Since these were unmodified COTS parts, we felt comfortable sharing them between the teams. They did not fall under the 25# spare parts limit. Actually, at the championship, we measured these belts for both teams 48 and 195, who had some difficult with breaking their belts.
When it comes to question 3, I think we need to be careful. I recall a situation in 2005 where a team's tetra gripper was damaged beyond repair. Another kind team stepped in, and lent the team their spare gripper. I would hate to see a rule preclude something like this happening. As Tristan and Madison mentioned early, where and how do we draw this line. Yes it comes down to intent, and intent is always difficult to determine. Do we let the lead inspector be the judge of whether the predetermined intent to circumvent the 25# rule?
A way of enforcing the simpler part of the 25# rule, would be to have teams declare their spare parts on Thursday morning, and have a sticker with a team number placed on them signifying ownership.
Let's keep these ideas flowing. (Rob, great thread idea)