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Unread 02-03-2003, 19:41
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SiliconKnight SiliconKnight is offline
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Team update #20 was due out 4 days ago, in it, FIRST was expected to clarify exactly what *is* legal and what isn't.

There are some interesting new rules this year, such as not requiring you to ship the human operator interface with the robot, and encouraging you to keep working on the firmware of the robot (for the autonomous mode functionality). Granted, the EduBot kit isn't a good substitute, but hey, it's better than nothing. So I don't know if they may relax the ruling on spare parts or not.

My interpretation is that *functionally identical spare parts* are okay. Changing gearing ratios wouldn't be functionally identical, but I don't think drilling lightening holes are a problem. That, and with so much vested in this competition, are you willing to risk that the machine shop at the regional has the facility to repair / modify your parts? I am a shopmaster in the support shop for the PNW regional, and god, I wouldn't count on getting things welded in our shop. (We don't have enough skilled welders to handle the welding). So, if it's just a few lightening holes, go for it.

I think a gear ratio hack is somewhat of a gray area. But then again, most teams push what they can get away with in the gray area. Remember all the teams who "took the risk" with the entanglement rule last year, with the tether devices?

I *do* have a problem with teams building completely new subsystems after they ship the robot. All those teams that copied the teather designs last year between regionals and nationals. Somehow I don't think they were built within the competition allowed time frame.

I have the most problem with teams that cheat to get in. I know of one team which removed half of their robot for weight-in last year. I also know of a team "captain" who, knowing that her team's robot is grossly overweight, advocated taking off the drivetrain off the robot instead of trying to do the proper weight reduction. Now *that* is plain uncool.

After all that's said and done - it comes down to one question: How much are you willing to bend the rules? You have to weight personal integrity with the expected benifits, and I guess most people make a compromise somewhere. (Just like engineering, huh?). I hope *most* of us are leaning closer to the legit side than the cheating side - and the ethnical thing is often the hardest thing to do.

-=- Terence
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Terence Tak-Shing Tam <ttstam@u.washington.edu>
Engineering Team Captain, SWAT Robotics
http://www.swatrobotics.org
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