[Al Skierkiewicz]

Pavan,
I just want to make a statement on a few posts first to reassure new/rookie team members. There is no rule that states that the robot must be built by students. It is desirable, depending on your team structure, but many teams feel strongly that inspiration is best handled with students working alongside adult mentors.
There are teams that might occasionally cross the line, there are teams that never cross the line and there maybe teams that cross the line regularly. For the most part no one will ever know in either case except the team. Our "gracious professionalism" credo insists that we make decisions that are based solely on the desire to inspire and recognize science and technology using robot construction and competition as a vehicle. This applies to all relationships between individuals, teams, sponsors and the FIRST organization. You cannot, by definition, inspire youth or adults by intentionally breaking rules or acting in a manner that is less than gracious or professional. Ideally this requires the same behavior 24/7. You cannot live graciously part of the day and then become a scoundrel at other times. However, as others have pointed out, trust and respect go hand in hand with fostering, by example, this behavior in other individuals and teams. We are human and therefore prone to mistakes in judgement. Even the best will occassionally make a mistake that they will have to live with for a long time. We should also then, strive to forgive and forget and move on. Nothing was ever accomplished by dwelling on the mistake or the punishment.
As to rules, yes some of them don't make very much sense or conflict with standard practice. However, it is the rules that all of us deal with. We should think of them as virtual real world constraints like gravity or battery power and plan accordingly. Occasionally we will be able to change some rules, but we should strive to follow them as well as we can.