[Vikesrock]

If someone has an under the table deal I have a feeling they wouldn't be posting about it on a public forum. Having said that, I don't really think these types of arrangements exist. If a team wants to be competitive they have to objectively evaluate the best robots at that specific competition when making their pick lists. Past interactions should only be moving teams around small amounts unless they are particularly egregious negatives.

With regards to building collaboration, their are many teams with arrangements like this. Some collaborating teams build the same robot (254+968, 494+70, 148+217 this year). Some collaborating teams merely share ideas, shop space or resources, I am confidant more of these collaborations exist, but they get less attention. Team IFI is one example of this type of collaboration, the teams share ideas and sometimes discuss things with each other, but do not necessarily build the same robot. A member of that collaboration may be able to address the details much better.

This year my team worked in the shop of our rookie mentee 3130. We did some discussion about the game together, however we did not extensively collaborate on design or manufacturing of our robots despite sharing a shop. Next year we are hoping to increase the level of collaboration between our two teams and also the other Woodbury team 3206. Among other things we are talking about more extensive sharing of prototyping successes and failures and a design review with all three teams to verify design concepts.