Quote:
Originally Posted by EricH
If AM were to sell a complete swerve module...
...Would it not fall under the following?
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The thing with that paragraph (and also the one preceding it in the beginning of 8.3) is that it's unreasonably vague. I suspect FIRST puts it in there as an obstacle to those who might attempt to bring such a thing to market, and as a warning to teams about such products, rather than because they think that it's enforceable with any sort of consistency. (It's not even a numbered rule, which makes it doubly unclear how it's supposed to be enforced....)
When the test is effectively "I know it when I see it", the inspector doing the inspecting should be allowed to be flexible about the interpretation. Generally speaking, the most equitable way to enforce loosely- (or worse, poorly-) constructed rules is to give the teams the benefit of the doubt.
Plus, even if a COTS assembly was intended for use in FIRST competitions, and provided a complete solution for a major robot function, and was thus impermissible, it could still provide a function that could be used in many different ways, rendering it acceptable. There's no priority given to one condition or the other, so which is it: legal or illegal?
If the "rule" isn't a rule (in the usual sense), is blatantly unclear, and enforcing it requires a judgment of the designer's intent, I don't see any way that this can be reasonably and consistently applied over the range of possible COTS parts. That's different from being a safe bet, however: FIRST may
think that there's no confusion, and act accordingly.
The economics of the situation look good, though: charge $250 per module, and sell some accessories that can be arranged in several different configurations (like different motors, different wheels, or mounting strategies), and you've got a winner.