[SteveJanesch]

Tom, Adam,

Thanks for enlightening me. There was no info available to me to suggest that 190 had contacted and been cleared by FIRST (GDC?) outside of Q&A. That puts a different spin on things. I'd be curious to see what exactly they sent to FIRST, what exactly the reply was, and how binding the reply was since there was no clarification made available to the community (or am I ignorant of something important again?). I may be developing some sympathy here...

And let me add, since I didn't say it before, that the idea is ingenious. I can't take anything away from the team on that. Really really clever, great job of problem solving.

I'm still going back and forth on this. Since I don't and won't know exactly what was said/written by/to whom and when, I'm going back to the sidelines. The new knowledge doesn't change my basic feeling about the whole thing: that when you play it close to the edge, sometimes you go over. When you take a big risk, sometimes you win big and sometimes you lose big. That's what happens in the real world - part of the lesson that FIRST is trying to teach.

Steve

EDIT: The other real-world thing that's going on here is that the rules (or their interpretation) are subject to change at any time. FIRST does a good (perhaps not perfect) job of not letting this happen, but it just isn't the case in business. In twenty years of design, every single product I've worked on has had some (or many) spec or customer requirement change after they were "frozen". Be glad when they don't change, but be prepared when they do.