I have a hypothetical. It's really easy too. You've got quadruplets in a regional. It's their one and only regional for the season. Only one of them managed to make it to the finals, the rest being eliminated. QuadA-Team competes in the first round, gets knocked over onto the railing, and breaks their intricate shooter mechanism in half. It would take them 30 minutes to replace it with the spare in the pit. But thanks to a nifty modular electrical system, they can swap robot RCs in just 5 minutes. QuadB-Team says, "Well why don't you guys just swap your RC into our robot and compete with it?"
Letting teams donate parts off an eliminated robot invites all sorts of craziness like this. However, after (finally) reading R29, I think it already prevents teams from doing ALL of these things. Here's the rule:
Quote:
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<R29> Teams may bring a maximum of 25 pounds of custom FABRICATED ITEMS (SPARE PARTS, REPLACEMENT PARTS, and/or UPGRADE PARTS) to each competition event to be used to repair and/or upgrade their robot at the competition site. All other FABRICATED ITEMS to be used on the robot during the competition must arrive at the competition venue packed in the shipping crate with the robot.
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The reasoning: It explicitly states that the 25 pounds are to be used to repair that team's robot. Moreover, it states that all other fabricated items not included in these 25 pounds to be used on the robot MUST arrive in the crate with that robot. Not in some other team's crate with their robot. Not brought in as spares by another team. So unless I'm somehow interpretting this rule too strictly (anti-lawyering?), I think it's pretty clear what teams can use on their robot.