[vivek16]

Originally Posted by BrentJ

I am new to FIRST so I may be misinterpreting the rules. But if your mentor gets the Midwest teams a discount on parts then those may become illegal if used on next year's robots.

I am sure someone more experienced will correct me if I am wrong. Also please don't take this personally as I am trying to learn how to interpret FIRST rules. I am basing my opinion on the 2008 Financial rules, I don't think 2009 rules will be much changed.

Just taking your statement at face value. Say the midwest teams are given a midwest only discount on Wago parts. If these parts are only used for pre-season training and not put on the 2009 robot not a problem.
But use them on the 2009 robot and they become illegal as other teams outside the Midwest can't buy these COTS at the same price. From reading of the rules if a COTS part can not be brought by all teams for the same price then it can't be used?

Am I reading the rules correctly?

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

Almost there. It is my understanding of the accounting rules, that any team can get anything allowed on your robot (material, component, etc..) for any price they can manage to get their hands on it for. (Free works best btw..lol)
But, for Bill Of Material purposes, all teams must account for COTS prices.(Re: Non-discounted prices).

For example, say I got a local metal distributor to give me 50% off for every metal piece my robot requires. (material).
I can jump for joy because I just saved my team 50% of the price & could potentially buy twice as much now with the money I had, but for legal competition documentation intents & purposes, I can not use more than the allowed cost of the robot in metal, or combined for everything used on the robot, & have to accurately account for the COTS price (Price of all that metal without a discount) in my BOM.

Bottom line is, that just because I can buy a bunch of metal for 50% off & you buy it at full price, I still have to account in my BOM the exact same price you do if we built the same exact robot with the same amount of metal. I can't build a robot twice the cost amount of you just because I got everything for 50% off.

What Elgin said. You must still put the parts in the Bill of Materials at full price but can receive a discount or even have the parts donated.

-Vivek