2010 Award for Excellence in Design Eligibility

[Barry Bonzack]

Eligibility This Contest is open to entrants 18 and over or over the age of majority in their jurisdiction or residence, whichever is older, in the United States, Canada, Austria, Germany, Spain, France, United Kingdom, Poland, Belgium, Finland, India, Japan, China, Italy, ASEAN member countries, Korea, New Zealand and Australia but excluding residents of Florida, New York, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, and the Province of Quebec.

This is a long sentence, and fairly confusing. Does this mean teams in NY and FL are not eligible?


Edit: Mods, please change the title. I copied and pasted the name of the award from the form. It looked fine when I pasted it. The title read "2010 Award for Excellence in Design Eligibility"

[wendymom]

I hope not!!

[Cynette]

Barry:

Where did you read this?

[wendymom]

Did you ask this question on O & A? or maybe send a note to Autodesk for clarification?

[Tristan Lall]

Here?

This could certainly use a clarification—if you ask on the Q&A, or ask frcteams@usfirst.org, someone will probably get to the bottom of this for you.

[Foster]

Q&A is the right place to verify, but a little digging....

From the rules:

Entrants who are residents of a country, state, province or jurisdiction that (1) prohibits any aspect of this Contest or (2) prohibits unregistered contests or (3) requires the contest sponsor to post a bond, are ineligible.

Google gets me this information about bonds:

GAME OF CHANCE BOND

These bonds are currently only required by Florida and New York.

They guarantee that the Principal will operate his/her contest according to regulations within these states and will ultimately award any prizes according to the contest rules.

Each bond only benefits residents of its respective state.

I infer that New York and Florida wants a "Game of Chance Bond" for the contest, Autodesk isn't going to post one, so they can't run the contest in those states, so residents of New York and Florida can't participate.

Welcome to the byzantine world of the US legal system!

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Foster

I infer that New York and Florida wants a "Game of Chance Bond" for the contest, Autodesk isn't going to post one, so they can't run the contest in those states, so residents of New York and Florida can't participate.

It seems to me that this would qualify as a game of skill, not a game of chance—which presumably negates the bond requirement.

If I were to bet on it, I'd say someone at Autodesk was being overly cautious about the contest terms, or instead, copied the boilerplate text from a game of chance (like software giveaway based on random selection).

[EricH]

Did anyone else notice the age requirement? That practically excludes all the teams from entry.

I think they simply used text from another Autodesk contest ruleset. This one is not well thought-out for FRC, and could easily exclude almost every FRC team out there.

[Foster]

Did anyone else notice the age requirement? That practically excludes all the teams from entry.

No it does not. If you read all of the rule information, they acknowledge the age requirement and problems in a FIRST team and say to get someone from the team thats over 18 (including mentors) to submit it.

The reason is simple, Autodesk require you to give them a license to use the submission. A license is a contract, minors can not enter into contracts. Thats why there is "age of majority" language in the front, for places were the age of a minor is different than the US.

Games of Skill vs Game of Chance

. The other phrase from the rules is "unregistered contests." which may also be the clause they are looking at for New York and Florida. Face it, you need to hire a lawyer to file the contest info in those states. It's a pain, more hoopage to leap through, more lawyer fees to pay, etc. etc. So they streamlined the process and gave up on the places listed.

Autodesk is a super sponsor, they give thousands of dollars to all sort of robotics programs (FIRST, VEX, etc) so I'm willing to cut them some slack.

(If you are looking for a way around this, send me a tee shirt for your team, make me a mentor and I'll submit your entry for you)

[wendymom]

if this is true....will there be an animation award at the Fla. Regional?

[Barry Bonzack]

Originally Posted by wendymom

if this is true....will there be an animation award at the Fla. Regional?

Also, if we were to submit at a regional other than Florida, would we still qualify as "residents of Florida" and unable to participate?

[Foster]

All good questions that all should get posted to the Q&A section for an official response. I'm not a lawyer, I just play one on CD.

Please report back what you find since other people will search here.

Thanks!

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by wendymom

if this is true....will there be an animation award at the Fla. Regional?

The animation award doesn't have a prize, just a trophy like most other awards, so that could be the difference from the Award for Excellence in Design.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Barry Bonzack

Also, if we were to submit at a regional other than Florida, would we still qualify as "residents of Florida" and unable to participate?

You remain a resident of Florida even when you travel out of state.

NY and FL Residents: If you do not like these laws, once you are 18 and can vote, have your lawmakers change them. That's how the system works.

[wendymom]

Answer received today from Laura at Autodesk

I wonder if you are referring to the very cumbersome legal language in the official rules when you refer to in-eligibility of Florida teams? Is that it?

If so, these contest rules are corporate boilerplate and we have ability to waive them for our FIRST Award competition, and have done so. Please do not worry.