Thread: YMTC: Bluateam Uses Old Pixels
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Unread 31-01-2008, 09:23
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Re: YMTC: Bluateam Uses Old Pixels
Alan is 100% correct. Whether or not every team follows this is a huge grey area but the intent of the rule is to keep every team whether it be your 10 year teams, or 1st year teams on the same playing field when it comes to making parts.

Not everyone even has CNC capabilities, so I'm not even sure if a proposal to voluntarily make your robot parts available to every team as a CAD file from year to year would be allowed as a form of "Commercially Available Off the (Internet) Source"??

One can only speculate what digital media restrictions will be in place in the future as FIRST continues to grow in the digital age.

Just as the world is fueled in the debate as to who "owns" digital media such as music files, this could become an even more grey area than is now.

I think the rule as written currently is just meant to be a banner about the theory of "shortcutting" the system for older teams and to (as I stated before) keep the field level for all participants.

While every intention is made to do this, Dean himself has said in the past that FIRST is not supposed to or meant to be fair for everyone involved, as it is a microcosm of the "real world" of engineering, but all attempts to be fair are tried by FIRST with the rules in place that all teams must adhere to.

If in the future a team was allowed to use their old CAD parts (legally written into the rulebook) with the blessing of the all powerful and knowing Manual if they shared their parts, I'm willing to bet most teams with extensive design hostory within their teams over the years (CAD, blueprints, etc...) would jump on that bandwagon and share knowledge in order to allow this shortcut.

I know we would be willing to share our information if this was allowed, and actually have in the past even without this additional incentive.
But maybe, just maybe that is the real test of this limitation as it's written now.
Not to share things just as a trade-off to benefit from it somehow, but so that your team is the position to give knowledge more than to receive at times.

Thoughts?
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Last edited by Elgin Clock : 31-01-2008 at 09:27.
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