[Richard Wallace]

I voted Hold, because I think Alan's view of <R28> is correct.

Pre-kickoff exercises are a great way to kick-start a team's season, and as Dave pointed out there is no prohibition on such exercises in the 2008 rules. Many of us feel they should be encouraged. Thinking should never be against the rules of FIRST, or any other rules in my view.

I've used revisions of pre-kickoff designs on several FRC robots. The design revisions were always made to correct (or attempt to correct) a perceived defect in the pre-kickoff design. Since neither I nor my team has ever designed a perfect part, I/we have always been able to identify helpful revisions to pre-kickoff designs. 'Defects' could be functional ones such as a structural weakness, or fabrication related such as small fit tolerances or extra machining steps.

In my experience, by the time one of my or my team's designs gets close enough to perfect that revisons aren't needed, that design has become a standard production item for some supplier -- so it's faster and cheaper to buy it than to make it. As the old engineer's saying goes, better is the enemy of good enough.

The difficulty arises when a team decides, for sound reasons, that a pre-kickoff design is good enough -- but that design is not available as a COTS item. Does such a decision itself constitute design? (My answer is emphatically "sometimes".) IF the GDC were to reach a consensus that it does, THEN they should rewrite <R28>.