"In The Know" - One Page Reader!

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by RoboMom

It's an official FIRST document. Came in an email blast.

This is a real problem with the format of this year's rules--they don't spell out what's official (as in, canonical and enforceable), versus what's informative (but not a valid basis for a ruling).

From communicating with a FIRST representative (Mr. Jost, of the Engineering dept.), we've established that the latest rules .pdfs (e.g. Section_3_The_Arena_rev_A.pdf) are official, as are the latest team updates, e-mail blasts (if any exist dealing with rule changes), and the most recent Q&A responses. Things like summaries, the 2005 FIRST Pneumatics Manual and the Guidelines, Tips and Good Practices don't constitute FIRST's official position, and inspectors and referees will not act upon them. (Mr. Jost says, "The Pneumatics Manual, and Tips and Guidelines documents are not official rules. They are only guidelines to help teams.") Similarly, the supplementary documents (layouts, drawings, etc.) are only official if they are referenced in an official source (e.g. 3.1.1 references the field layout drawings).

Basically, as this relates to the summary in question, even though FIRST wrote it, officials should not consider its contents when making a ruling.