NASA Grant App posted

[Mark McLeod]

Originally Posted by ROCM-G5-O10

The competition season should officially begin no sooner than 1 month after all High Schools have begun their high school year.

FRC doesn't qualify for this since the official competition season opened with registration on September 30.

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

FRC doesn't qualify for this since the official competition season opened with registration on September 30.

I don't get it. What part of FRC registration says that the official competition season has begun?

[Mark McLeod]

Originally Posted by JesseK

I don't get it. What part of FRC registration says that the official competition season has begun?

This statement seems to sum it up.

Season Overview

The official FRC season starts with event registration in the fall, proceeds from the Kickoff in early January through the six-week robot design and build period, and continues to the robot shipment deadline in late February. The Regional events occur late February through early April, culminating at the FIRST Championship, which will be held in St. Louis from 2011 through 2013.

Although, I suppose a semantical argument might be the dates of the first competition event and the last event. That'd have to be published in a FIRST official document in those matching terms I suppose, but it'd be splitting hairs.

P.S.
This isn't to say that the grants won't apply to FRC. I'm sure it'll all be interpreted to our advantage.

P.P.S.
Havoc also occurs when you consider the southern hemisphere school calendar.
My daughter just got off Spring break in Australia...

[Gary Dillard]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

Although, I suppose a semantical argument might be the dates of the first competition event and the last event. That'd have to be published in a FIRST official document in those matching terms I suppose, but it'd be splitting hairs.

Since the FRC Manual (Rule R25) specifically says

But absolutely no final design, fabrication, or assembly of any elements intended for the final ROBOT is permitted prior to the Kick-off presentation.

I don't know how the beginning of the season and the beginning of the competition season could be equated.

[Mark McLeod]

Semantically, I don't see how that rule quote (from last year) can be applied. It makes no reference to a season at all, it only references a single day (Kickoff), when some FRC schools are not even in session much less a month afterwards. At least locate an official quote that says "competition season."

But I didn't mean to derail this thread into semantic arguments. I just like to poke fun at the difficulty of contractual wording...

[Gary Dillard]

I guess semantically it applies as much as your quote which doesn't refer to a competition season at all.

[Mark McLeod]

Touché

[Gary Dillard]

So this kinda got me interested in the "semantics", and there appear to be conflicting "inferred" definitions of the competition season in the 2010 manual.

Under definition of Withholding allowance, there is a note that refers to "the entire period between robot ship date and the start of the competition season", which would infer that it starts with the actual competition events. However, in Rule 25 an example of the fabrication schedule describes a part which is fabricated "during the competition season" being illegal because it was designed prior to kick-off, which would imply that the build season is part of the competition season and thus it starts at kick-off.

Hmmmmmm..............

[RoboMom]

Appreciate all the interpretations here from people I respect.
But as someone who is trying to mentor (ya know, all that non-robot stuff) teams and mentors both in FIRST programs as well as other robotics programs like VRC, I am flummoxed. For FRC teams, there is a considerable chunk of $$ maybe in the offering, and there are dozens of teams in this area who have benefited from this terrific partnership over the years.

But is this clearly not worth the effort for VRC?

ps. I would love to have a Mark/Gary thread on interpretations. I have a few I can throw in from my fat file "I'm really not making this up" but not appropriate for this thread.

[Mark McLeod]

I think it's still worth it to apply. NASA has still left the door open to do whatever they want.

If your proposal does not fall within the scope of the ROC winner NASA apologizes that we will be unable to award you a scholarship for your requested competition at this time, with one caveat. That caveat being at NASA's discretion we may choose to award registration scholarships for some of the winning proposals.