Cost Determination, Section 5.3.4.4

[Gdeaver]

I strongly believe that composite construction has a place in First robotics and I have introduced them to our team and we have had great success with them. However, getting back to the original post I'm ready to throw out the red flag and cry foul. A team that has access to high grade materials, fabrication facilities and design resource can gain an advantage over other teams. These are resources that the rest of us can not acquire at any cost. Going forward I think composites need a close look by First to determine what is allowed based on availability to all teams and the cost issue. Aerospace composite manufactures have access to types of prepegs,cloth and resins that an individual team cannot get. Their performance specs are an order of magnitude better than what can be achieved with hand lay up and materials that could be acquired by any team. As to the valuation of materials , to account for 5 yards of cloth or prepeg at 1000yd price for 5 yards would be wrong as other teams could not receive that price if they could purchase the material in cut roll pricing at all. Then the subject of tooling,molds and set up and clean up cost needs to be looked at. There are many types of composite materials that are available of the shelf. Dry cloth, room temperature cure epoxy resins, FRP and vinyl ester pultrusions, composite tubes and rods, g10 11 and 12 sheets are all available off the shelf from many manufactures and distributors and should be allowed. These issues are not the same as a team water jetting a panel vs. a team cutting the panel by hand.