Section 8.3.3 Illegal Gearboxes and Chassis

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by dlavery

The first team that uses a lawyer to interpret the rules should be disqualified from all competitions, just on general principles.

-dave

so, do you feel that the term "gracious lawyer" might be an oxymoron?

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by dlavery

The first team that uses a lawyer to interpret the rules should be disqualified from all competitions, just on general principles.

Lawyers have their uses. Interpreting FRC rules is not one of those uses.

Back to topic: my interpretation is similar to Tristan's. I would like very much to have a 2007 Q&A response on this very soon. It would not be any fun to inspect Paul's robot if (1) he proceeds as outlined above and (2) I still concur with Tristan's reasoning on March 1st. We need the GDC to resolve this one before any of us waste a lot more time.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Richard

Lawyers have their uses. Interpreting FRC rules is not one of those uses.

Back to topic: my interpretation is similar to Tristan's. I would like very much to have a 2007 Q&A response on this very soon. It would not be any fun to inspect Paul's robot if (1) he proceeds as outlined above and (2) I still concur with Tristan's reasoning on March 1st. We need the GDC to resolve this one before any of us waste a lot more time.

We should nominate someone from this thread to ask these questions about:

A. Off-season/prior season designs and drawings.
B. Off-season purchased mechanisms.
C. Previous year components and mechanisms.

10 different people asking 30+ different questions might not work as well.

[whytheheckme]

Originally Posted by dlavery

The first team that uses a lawyer to interpret the rules should be disqualified from all competitions, just on general principles.

-dave

Hey!

We have a father on our team that is a lawyer, and he is in charge of strategy/rules/safety! His job is to interpret the rules!

lol,
Jacob

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by whytheheckme

Hey!

We have a father on our team that is a lawyer, and he is in charge of strategy/rules/safety! His job is to interpret the rules!

lol,
Jacob

My dad was a lawyer. There is NO WAY that I would let him anywhere near the FIRST rules! Who knows what damage he might have done!

-dave

[Steve W]

Originally Posted by ewankoff

My interpretation of these rules is that andy mark transmisissions purchased before the kickoff may be used as long as the COMPONENTS were not assemebled to be a MECHANISM. The rules even encourage gathering supplies but not assembling or fabricating those items. Any raw COMPONENT that was purchased at anytime can be used on this years robot.

(Capitolized words are defined in the manual)

A transmission is a mechanism of individual components assembled to made the transmission. By that definition they would not be allowed.

This is were we will need better answers from FIRST. I would also ask the question : Why can someone use a design from last year but someone that works on one in the off season is not allowed to use that design? I can understand that it must be built during "BUILD" season, but why would FIRST stiffle the inspiration and creativity that they are trying to promote. I guess that there is the same issue with those that worked on getting the camera to work and cannot use what they have designed (I know that it has to be reprogrammed as builders must rebuild).

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Paul Copioli

There are contradictions between this and rule R24. Rule R24 reads:

This is the best rule ever! However, I now have more questions. We WILL be using the gerbox housing we used in 2005 and 2006 for our drive base. However, the drawings were done in 2005. Rule R24 states I can use the component from 2005 / 2006, but according to section 8.3.3 I can't make another one from my drawings. That seems a bit ridiculous.

Now, what about the kit gearbox housing from last year (or 2005 for that matter)? If you follow the flow chart it is legal since it is not a kit part this year. So by the letter of the rule R24 the old kit gearbox housing is legal, right?

According to <R48> (the flowchart), the kit gearbox falls under the following:

Is the part or material off-the-shelf or is it custom made by the team after the start of the 2007 Kickoff? (See Robot Section)

If you assume that "off-the-shelf" means COTS, the answer is no (technically, it is an off-the-shelf part, but COTS additionally requires that it be available to FIRST teams now). That makes it illegal, and by violating a 2007 rule, it's not legal for use, despite <R24>.

Furthermore, your custom housings were never COTS. They go through the same flowchart scrutiny, and unequivocally fail. Unfortunately, they're illegal, because any violation (e.g. of <R48>) means that <R24> doesn't allow them. I'm not sure of the Q&A's guidance from last year, but that's about two steps removed from being a 2007 rule, so I'd say the current rules have to take precedence.

[RogerR]

while an entire COTS gearbox from a prior year's 'bot seems to be disallowed, what about the components that its made of? specifically, i'd like to pull the guts out of our old AM shifters, and use them in our latest design; all the basic parts are available individually from AM.biz (and i suspect we'll need some additional/replacement parts), so if i list the individual parts on my BOM, would this be within the letter and spirit of the rule(s)?

[Dasistmeinmoped]

Idea for those AM shifters. great loophole. Locate another team who is planning on buying them, both get a set, then sell them to each other. The fact is AM turns out a nice product that gives teams a chance to compete at a higher level, who without a shop would never have a shot to try something new. Ordering per-season seems like a decent idea to prevent back orders.

[Alan Anderson]

There was serious discussion of a scheme last year where the manufacturer would buy back a gearbox and immediately resell it to a team in order to satisfy the letter of the rule. From what I could tell, nobody had a problem with that violating the spirit of the rule, because nobody could come up with a good reason for the rule to have a spirit in the first place.

[Bharat Nain]

Originally Posted by Andy Brockway

This effects all of you that designed a new chassis this past year. Team 25 reported that they had a better chassis for this year. I hope you did not make any drawings! BTW all of last year’s custom chassis’s, complete with drawings, are now illegal.

I am hoping that FIRST will allow detail drawings in the public domain to be legalized.

Our originally planned chassis and gearbox isn't ideal for this game. So we have to redesign, but thanks for bringing this rule to our attention.

[T3_1565]

Originally Posted by Andy Brockway

This effects all of you that designed a new chassis this past year. Team 25 reported that they had a better chassis for this year. I hope you did not make any drawings! BTW all of last year’s custom chassis’s, complete with drawings, are now illegal.

I am hoping that FIRST will allow detail drawings in the public domain to be legalized.

This doesn't mean that you can make drawings for your chassis, it means you can't use those drawings during frabrication.

Therefore, make new drawings!!

[ChuckDickerson]

Originally Posted by T3_1565

This doesn't mean that you can make drawings for your chassis, it means you can't use those drawings during frabrication.

Therefore, make new drawings!!

Please don't take this the wrong way but I think you may have missed the point of my post. Yes, we all know what the rules were last year but we were at first concerned with the wording of some of the rules as discussed in this thread regarding what was and wasn't legal to use based on when you purchased it. My point in the post was simply to remind teams that the rules are always subject to change from year to year and that whether it is a fancy new COTS gearbox or a sheet of carbon fiber think carefully before you spend a bunch of funds that you may not be able to recover if the rules change and that item is no longer legal.

[T3_1565]

Originally Posted by DeepWater

Please don't take this the wrong way but I think you may have missed the point of my post. Yes, we all know what the rules were last year but we were at first concerned with the wording of some of the rules as discussed in this thread regarding what was and wasn't legal to use based on when you purchased it. My point in the post was simply to remind teams that the rules are always subject to change from year to year and that whether it is a fancy new COTS gearbox or a sheet of carbon fiber think carefully before you spend a bunch of funds that you may not be able to recover if the rules change and that item is no longer legal.

This is my fault, I was reading the first couple of posts in this thread and responded to them, not yours!

Sorry

[meaubry]

Yes, Deepwater is correct -
The way the rules have been distributed in the past at the kickoff, didn't assure year to year continuity. What was legal one year didn't necessarily mean it would be legal the next.

When purchasing material or parts, there is that risk that must be considered.

I have advocated that rules that do not impact the game, but might impact the way a team functions outside of the time from Kickoff to Championship event, should be posted on the FIRST FRC website - and not included each year in the rule book at the kickoff.

There are plenty of those type of "standing" non-game dependent rules that could be communicated and managed with effective dates for subsequent revisions, regardless of when those revisions occur. All of the rules do not need to be rolled out at the kickoff, and in some cases (like the one you are posting about) it would be good to know what teams could, and what teams shouldn't, plan on doing in advance.

Mike Aubry