"Spare Parts" Rules Are Broken

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by Cory

Guys, use some common sense... they took MASSIVE amounts of time to make those treads, can you honestly go to them, look them in the face, and then tell them that they have to disassemble their treads and put them back together?

Yes, I would. In a heartbeat, and with no guilt. Look folks, we all know what the rules are. FIRST was even very specific about issues like this. Update #11 makes a point of stating:

"FIRST staff and volunterrs will vigorously support and envorce the 2004 rules as written. A team's excellent and creative work that may not align /be in agreement with the rules will be acknowledged as excellent work but will be disallowed."

If the team mentioned above wants to have custom treads on their robot, and wants to have a spare set for the competitions, then they have a simple choice to make. Either make a spare set of the treads, fully assemble them, and throw them in the box with the robot to have as ready-to-go spares; or bring the individual components of the tread assemblies (note: individual components include unmodified off-the-shelf items such as wheels [with hubs] and umodified chains - Andy Baker has the right interpretation), and then assemble them on site. Under the rules, there is no other choice. If they show up at a competition with an assembled set of treads, that they did not ship with their robot, then those treads cannot be used in the competition.

If all the teams that manage to work within this set of rules can make it work, why in the world should we make an exception for those that cannot stay within the same constraints? A majority of teams have found a way to make their robot design and spares policy fit within the rules that we have all been given. I believe that they should be acklowledged and congratulated - and their efforts should not be tainted or trivialized by someone else's inability to play by the same rules. A small number of teams are trying to make the rules fit their own robot design and spares policies. FIRST has made it clear that this will not be accepted.

-dave