[DonRotolo]

Right. Any FABRICATED things that were fabricated prior to kickoff cannot be used. However, publishing the design magically transforms that 'thing' into a COTS item, which can be used even if it existed prior to kickoff.

Intent is a slippery slope.

If MY team had designed something and published the design (in a reasonably public place, like the team website or here on CD), and then built some of those things this year, I'd agree it complied with the rules. But I wouldn't let them use what they'd built already (even though they could). I mean, what if they had built (& published) several different "drive modules" over the summer - we'd have a finished drivetrain already. And that advantage wouldn't be right, in my opinion.