Dangerous precedent set by Q&A 461: Loaning Parts/Assemblies to other teams

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

Honestly, the original GDC ruling was exactly in line with the rules. Not the tradition, but the rules. It sounds like now we need to figure out what the rules are, all over again, two days before competition.

To be fair, R1 and the corresponding rules in numerous previous years have suffered from ambiguities about who is a member of the groups allowed to build robot parts for a team, and ambiguities about what it means to build a robot part. The GDC's original ruling was consistent with one plausible interpretation of those ambiguous constraints, and past practice was consistent with an alternative plausible interpretation. In fact, because of all those plausible interpretations floating around, you've always needed to be ready to figure out the rules all over again, because the officials at an event or the GDC might suddenly decide to clarify them in a way you hadn't anticipated.

Obviously, clearer rules make interpretations a simpler task, and I think (as always) that FIRST should strive for that. But I do acknowledge the possibility that FIRST might have been making an active decision not to regulate this quite so precisely, in the hope that something unforeseen and beneficial¹ comes out of it. I'm not sure it's a bet I'd have been willing to make if I were the GDC of several years ago—but given FIRST's recent and much appreciated willingness to change course when good cause is shown, I would grant today's GDC more latitude in allowing ambiguities to be resolved in an evolutionary, rather than prescriptive way.

¹ Like cheesecake, of course.