Quote:
|
Originally Posted by dlavery
It has been suggested that FIRST needs to issue a statement that limits that ability of teams to act on behalf of other teams to fabricate parts. To which I respond: why in the world should FIRST ever do such a thing?
|
If the statement is "no problem" then that's just fine. To me, the most basic issue is that FIRST say
something, because there is obviously controversy surrounding the issue. Right now, it seems very much like a loophole, because the rules don't explicitly cover these situations, and, quite frankly, some officials (i.e. volunteers such as referees and inspectors) disagree on the limitations that are currently in effect—this doesn't help the overall effort to maintain consistency between events.
Note, however, that when I referred to limitations, I said "outside of the regular rules" in reference to those situations where an agent of a team manufactures something at the team's behest, or alternatively, where a team accepts a part which, if it had been constructed by the team, wouldn't be legal (e.g. made outside a fix-it window). Right now, I would be forced to be permissive in my interpretation, because there's no rule that disallows this sort of thing*. But it appears to be exploitable to absurd degrees: what if 188 built a significant portion of a robot for 116, and vice versa? If exchanges of parts are legal without exception, do we have a problem? (Recall that these are not subject to the 25# rule, since they're originals, and not spares, replacements or upgrades.) Those robot parts would be, in effect, excused from much of 5.3.3, because of the fact that those rules cover what a team may do for
their robot, and not what they may do for others' robots.
So, am I lawyering again? Maybe. But it might also be characterized thus: like any good engineer, I'm reading the specifications
as published, and seeking clarification of the ambiguities and oversights. There's no sense in being dogmatic about our "technical common sense" when the opportunity exists to decide upon a definitive interpretation.
The fact of the matter is that FIRST's intent is not clear on this matter, and this interpretation, while not rock-solid, is apparently valid, given the letter of the rules. So I wonder, is FIRST willing to permit this extreme case as well? Even if it allows teams to effectively circumvent the fix-it window rules?
I could speculate wildly that the loopholes (or whatever we wish to call them) were purposely included in the rules, to reward the "smart" teams. But all talk of fairness aside, I can't really see how that would help the competition, or FIRST's greater goals. To an observer, these sorts of crazy situtations, should they ever play out, would look like incompetence, rather than strokes of genius—because whatever deeper purpose they serve would be obscured by the outrage and confusion. And as a practical matter, who would want to be the person charged with explaining the intricacies of who can, and who cannot build what, when and for whom, to an irate team?
In summary, it's not the sharing that's the problem; it's the degree of sharing theoretically permitted by the 2006 rules.
*Except <R29> which would tend to rule out part-sharing, as well as on-site part fabrication due to the shipped-with-the-robot limitation on all fabricated items. Since that portion of the rule is never strictly enforced, and in fact is contradicted elsewhere (in <R19>), I would have to ignore that portion of the rule as erroneous—it can't logically co-exist with <R19>.