**FIRST EMAIL**/Looking for Beta Test Teams

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Jack Jones

I wonder about the need for an NDA. Will the beta test teams have a leg up on the rest of the field all the way up until kick-off? If it's not a major advantage, then why not make a full disclosure on the control system at the same time as the beta sites get it?

I can certainly say that my team definitely did not have a significant leg up on anyone else in terms of control system issues last year. The NDA is more of a "Disclosure Agreement" that says how and when you can discuss things about the control system. As soon as we could, our team (and every other beta test team) spread everything they knew far and wide. I'm fairly certain this will happen again, especially with this

* Be available to answer questions from area teams and the broader FRC community
* Release every piece of code developed

Being part of the email.

Realize that the NDA may not mean they can't disclose anything but may mean they can't disclose portions of things. Additionally, this is a BETA, technically speaking this could remain unused this year should FIRST decide that the system is not ready.

This is actually a lot of what happened last year. We had to relearn a lot of things when we got the "real" control system.