Eliminating "Start Build Day"

[Christopher149]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

For sake of argument, let's assume the game is announced on the first Saturday after Labor Day, and competitions occurred the same weeks they currently do.

As a Michigan mentor of FTC and FRC, this would be very rough. It is nice that up through FTC States (Super Regionals is a different matter), FTC and FRC do not overlap in Michigan, letting me separate the two build+competition seasons. If they overlapped, I probably couldn't do both.

Now one thing that strikes me about "things built before kickoff", is 3D printed parts. Many of them are small utility items where it seems a little silly to have to make new each year (unless there is a loophole in the rules I've neglected). Because they are a product that is as close to just a simple manifestation of a (for sake of argument) publicly available CAD file, should that count?