pic: 3716 Transmissions

[JVN]

Originally Posted by MWB

Most of my design was heavily inspired by your designs. I took some pictures at SVR last year and looked upon those for inspiration. You shouldn't be mad that I "stole" your design, but you should be happy that you taught me something about designing transmissions and were able to spread your knowledge without even knowing it.

John, RC was not planning to sell anything this season nor will he as posted below.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/36370

I was wrong to advertise, he was making aluminum gears for himself and I bugged him to make some for us.

In general, no one in FIRST gets angry when someone "steals" a design, but they like it a LOT more when they get credit. You said "this is 100% our design" which is true, but a better statement would have been "we designed this heavily inspired by _____".

As far as selling gears...
It sounds to me more like RC did you a favor and his team/machine shop/whatever is sponsoring your team by donating some machining as a favor. You just paid for raw stock and some annodizing (which is what you'll account for in your Robot BOM). Manufacturing sharing is a great collaborative part of FIRST. THAT would be legal...

Be clear. There are big differences in the nuances here. Saying it one way will make you friends, saying it another raises eyebrows. Your design was inspired heavily by others, and you got some gears machined by a friend... right?

-John

PS - The transmissions look great