Purchase/Prebuild - What's the difference?

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Bill Gold

Under the 2004 rules I would argue that this shell company would be illegal unless its services are offered to other teams across Canada, America, Mexico, Brazil, England, and wherever else the next international teams pop up. Well, I should say that it would be illegal to record the cost of a certain gear/sprocket as $1 against your $3,500 limit. I’m not sure if that was the intended result of this scenario, but I think that this kind of circumventing of the spirit of the rule would be inappropriate. The idea of a shell company is also unnecessary under the current rules, since you can stock up on components (like raw materials, gears stock from any catalog, sprockets stock from any catalog, etc.) legally in the off-season. Any modifications to the stock products obviously have to be done after the kickoff.

Originally Posted by Andrew

On the other hand, supplying 1000+ teams with two FIRST-custom-built gearboxes may result in a permanent undersupply. Since this is a sole-source item, it can be determined whether, theoretically, all teams can receive their parts within the six week build phase. If they cannot, then, technically, the parts are -not- available to all teams and violate the rule.

I will also note that the rule states that the item must be "generally available ... from suppliers..." which would bar sole source items.

The shell company idea is solely to point out a potential pitfall in one of the proposed solutions to this problem. Regarding the $1, and the sole-source concept:

<R68> Additional Parts must be generally available from suppliers such that any other FIRST team, if it so desires, may also obtain them at the same price. (A specific device fabricated by a team from non-2004 Kit materials does not have to be available to others, however, the materials it is made from must be available to other teams.)

So they would have to make it available; but that's not the same thing as known. If a store has a sale and doesn't tell me, the items are still available, but I might not know about it--I'm in absolutely no position to demand (after the fact) that they also permit me to pay the reduced price. Furthermore, I'm in no position to demand that anyone who benefited from the sale was doing so unfairly. Worse still, if a team-affiliated company decided, "we'll make two of these gearboxes", and sold them to a team, and declared the gearboxes to be out of stock, and out of production, could anyone make a case against them without somehow distinguishing them from a normal company? (After all, real companies can declare things to be out of stock and/or out of production too; we can't protest their decisions.)

While last season's <R68> is appropriate for last season, if any significant changes are made to this portion of the rules, it might be wise to clarify the exact nature of "obtain[ing] them at the same price", for the express reason of closing that loophole. Limiting sources is the easy way out--but is there a better way?

It is obvious that these scenarios are not necessarily examples of wholesome behaviour. They are examples of possible behaviour, however, and some may even be justified as potential alternate interpretations of the rules. Therefore, despite the difficulty of making rules for FIRST, it does nobody any good to say "but they'll be gracious and professional" and allow the possibility that teams will interpret something in an unexpected fashion. If at all feasible, the most correct course of action is to spell out any expectations clearly and precisely.