[Tristan Lall]

In the absence of a statement to the contrary from FIRST, I've assumed these to be illustrative examples, rather than enforceable rules. (Consider that the previous two examples are clearly illustrative rather than prescriptive, given that they name fictitious vendors and specific components.)

I would say that the example leaves open the possibility that you could also extend the analogy to other sources, because it's totally unclear which elements of the example are necessary, and which are incidental.

But with that said, I think that example 3 is poorly constructed. The 2009 rules simply cannot be applied in a logically consistent way to things that aren't part of the robot. Design drawings are not part of the robot, and are not COTS—unless you propose to shred the paper drawings and make papier-mâché gears. A component, for the purposes of the rules, is a robot part. COTS applies only to components and mechanisms—which are collections of components. Therefore it does not apply to drawings (used conventionally). Furthermore, COTS requires that something be available for purchase—yet the example says that you could obtain it from a "professional publication" without implying that a sale is necessary. What if the professional publication was in the public domain?

I figure FIRST was trying to illustrate the idea that a design drawing (no matter the source) that you follow in order to produce a part yourself, always leads to the part being a fabricated item (and not COTS). They would have benefitted from a bit of assistance with the phrasing, if that was their intention.


With regard to your proposed rule, I think it would be necessary to change the way COTS is defined in order to make that work. FIRST would have to extend the definition to some non-robot non-parts. (That sounds like a bad idea....)

It would also be very useful to state what is not allowed—your formulation of <R??> and <R65> both permit something, but don't prohibit anything. That means we would still have to pore through the rest of the rules, to try to figure out if the item is still permissible, despite not passing <R65> or <R??>. In fact, only if you interpret the text at the top of 8.3.4 to include non-team actions, and be enforceable in the first place (it's not a rule, but it's in the rulebook) is there any substantial restriction on code coming from a non-team source other than the ones listed in <R65>. (Or, you could make the assumption that code is a robot part and apply those rules, but that makes no sense given the way that the rules treat parts as physical things.)