Quote:
Originally Posted by njamietech
I agree with people in FTC wanting to hide their robot...
But doesn't it violate the whole concept of gracious professionalism to do so. I think it also violates gracious professionalism to steal someones idea without their permission.
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Very true. Although, we kind of touched on this when our team posted pictures of our robot (FTC 546) a few weeks back. We didn't fear that people would "steal" our idea, per se. Frankly, we really didn't mind other teams getting inspiration from our design: FIRST isn't all about keeping your robot a secret from the rest of the world (although it is perfectly understandable if that's how you would like to keep things), but it isn't about taking ideas from other robots, either.
We figured that, if there were teams out there who would sacrifice originality and the engineering process just for the sake of winning, those teams probably need to learn more about what FIRST is about. Teamwork, even between competitors on and off the field is what really counts. Just posting a picture can be a valuable source of inspiration for a struggling team, which is why we think it's important not to keep your whole robot "under wraps." However, for the sake of the competition, it would probably be best to just post "teasers" instead if you're looking to provide inspiration to other teams.