YMTC: Can teams start cutting metal for 2005?

[Jaine Perotti]

Originally Posted by Natchez

RULE 041209-A: A FIRST team must not view, touch, or use any parts constructed or acquired before January 8, 2005 other than those from the approved vendor list (or exact duplicates from an alternate vendor).

RULE 041209-B: A FIRST team can not view, touch, or use any parts acquired from a FIRST-friendly vendor before January 19, 2005 (must be procured from FIRST-friendly vendor ... no alternative vendors accepted).[/i]

....

• Teams can not use old robots to get insight into the 2005 game. The robots must not be viewed, touched, or used after January 8th. If you wish to teach your team about your old robots then it would have to be done before January 8th. The robots must be "locked up" on January 7th and can not be used until after the ship date. I know that the gut reaction is to say, "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!" but think about it for a while.

For the first two rules, I can agree with the idea of no parts being used, ...but no parts constructed or acquired before Jan. 8th can be viewed or touched? To put it quite frankly, I think that is rather absurd. If the parts are not are not being used on the 2005 robot AT ALL, then what is the harm in looking at them or touching them? If the part has been acquired or fabricated before Jan 8th, but is not going to be used on the '05 bot... how on earth could this be considered cheating?

I can't imagine what would happen if a part acquired before Jan 8th happened to fall on the floor... I can just see every one trying to cover their eyes, run for their rubber gloves, and try to remove it while looking in the other direction. ...Not to mention the incredible task of removing everything pre-2005 from the shop area and finding a place to lock it up... some teams simply can't pack things up like that.

As for the rules on the old robots, this would make things much more difficult on my team. We always use our old robots to put prototype parts on (after kickoff). Without these robots, we might not know whether or not a part we were making would have worked properly. We also used our old robots to test autonomous code; this was necessary because before the robot was completed, we needed something to test on. We couldn't have waited until the last week to load the program on the robot to see if it worked...we needed to test and debug. We trained drivers extensively this past year using our old robots, and because of it, we were able to be better prepared for the competition. How could looking at or using an old robot be cheating? If the old robot is not going to be used for competition in 2005, how is it a pre-made part if you are not going to be competing with it? For my team, the use of old robots is an underlying key to success in the build season.

Maybe I misunderstood some of what was being conveyed in your post. Maybe you can answer my above questions?

-- Jaine