Request: photos of wheels

FIRST General Forum
1

I’m currently writing a tutorial/paper about drive control. Problem is, most of the example photos of the wheels used in FRC are copyrighted.

Anybody got photos of their wheels that they’re willing to let me use? Ideally I’m looking for clear photos, with very little in the background, of the following types of wheels:
-Plain old simple wheels
-Omni wheels
-Meccanum wheels
-Swerve wheels (including the swivel mechanism)

I’m willing to give attribution if you prefer - something like ‘image courtesy [your name here]’. If you want attribution, please list your preferred handle or name in the post.

Once the paper is complete I’ll post it on CD.

Thanks!

2

You could use the photos from VEXPro and AndyMark (with their permission). Unless you want pictures of them on robots.

3

A big thanks to those who’ve sent me usable images! AndyMark has graciously provided images of their products for use in this paper. Thanks AndyMark!

4

Thank you for taking copyright for photos into consideration with your paper. There are a lot of folks that don’t do that these days.

5

IANAL, but if you are making freely-distributed educational materials, your use of photos may be considered Fair Use.

6

How about home made wheels?
Here’s ours: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/22891
You have my permission to use them if you want.

7

This omniwheel is not copyrighted.

8

That is exactly right. Educational materials are clearly protected under fair use law. Here’s another source on Fair Use . Long story short you are well within your legal rights to use this material.

In concern to the “Freely-distributed” part of the post I’m quoting. Its a common misconception that if you make your content free it’s fair use, and if you make money from it it’s copyright infringement. Fair Use law has nothing to do with whether your content makes money or not. You can make free content that infringes copyright, and you can make money on copyrighted content assuming your use of it falls under Fair Use.

9

I’m not entirely clear on the issue here. Are the photographs you need copyrighted themselves, or is there a problem with using photographs of components like wheels from VEXPro, which can cause copyright issues even if it’s an original photo?

If the latter is the issue, then I would have to look into that more, since I feel like that wouldn’t be the case. I’m not sure what the rules are for taking photos of branded parts and sharing them, since we do that constantly by sharing pics of our robots.

If the former is the issue, here’s a link to our 2015 painted VEXPro mecanum wheels. I think they’re pretty.