“Teams … fabricate their own” : Is the intent to prevent college teams from buying commercially available plastic parts they find suitable? eg Igus bearings, misc plastic gears.
Is the intent to prevent college teams from designing custom parts, but hiring out CNC contract manufacturing?
“unique VEX parts” : I’m ignoring this part, assuming that any fabricated plastic part a team builds for their college VEX robot counts as “VEX parts”, and that they are allowed to fabricate :
multiple parts that are the same as each other (not unique),
multiple parts that are nearly identical to VEX supplied parts,
parts identical to those that were designed and shared by another team,
parts identical by coincidence to those designed by another team,
parts identical by industrial espionage to those designed by another team.
Is there any example of a team fabricated part that would fail this “unique VEX parts” criteria?
“Not by volume” : Similar to sheet-goods rules, is it sufficient compliance for this phrase if all the team fabricated parts of this material can be stacked in a 6"x6"x1" volume, either literally, or in theory as shown by drawing?
A 1x1x36" rod is the same volume as 6x6x1, but would not pass this test.
My intent is to not have saw-kerf waste count against my 6x6x1" volume.
Thanks for your consideration. I hope that discussions like this help encourage college teams to make innovative custom parts.
With this rule we are trying to encourage both the custom design and fabrication of parts. Buying commercially available plastic parts would not be legal. It would be legal to obtain manufacturing from an outside source.
All the examples you listed would be legal for competition use.
Yes, this rule is similar to the sheet metal rule, all fabricated parts of the given material must be able to be stacked in a 6"x6"x1" volume in theory as shown in a drawing. The saw-kerf waste does not need to be accounted for.