Preseason Design: What are the Limits?

[Dan Richardson]

A few of us old timers on 1902 were poised with a interesting question we'd never really thought of, What are the specific rules or I guess intent of the rules for designing robot components in the preseason. I obviously understand the big nono in preseason fabrication but according to last years rules rule R17 doesn't really mention anything about design, or at least explicitly. R18 ( and a bit earlier ) speak of after ship and between competitions specifically but nothing of the "Off-Season"

I guess my question is this. If a team were to have a prepared stack of drawings for ohh say 5 different drive trains and manipulator options what stops them from just picking and choosing which one works for them. I know this may be a bad example for a manipulator but year after year you see the exact same drive train out of some teams, do they redesign each year?

Also kind of going along with the same question, would this apply to things like the nothing but Dewalts design? If a team were to just use the drawings available to them in the white paper would that be ok? Or would they have to reproduce those drawings in order to manufacture the part.

Lastly, if a team were to complete a set of drawings/designs, and then proceed to make it available to everyone via their team website or multiple white papers would it then be acceptable for that team to use one of those designs. I guess almost like a "COTS" set of drawings/designs.

I'm not really sure what I believe, thats why I've posed these questions to you guys. What do you guys think the literal interpretation and the "spirit" of the rule are?