{favorite.quote} do not re-invent the square wheel

I have heard that getting the Segway robot to work properly (navigation, localization, etc.) may take quite a while. There are others in the department who have spent years on Segway development. My initial reaction when I heard this was, "nice! There is no need to re-invent the wheel." I am not sure how much this could be true and how much different professors are willing to share their students time. I am just hoping that I do not re-invent a square wheel.

Ironically, today, I read an article by Henry Spencer, "How to Steal Code or Inventing the Wheel Only Once". Somewhere in the article, I found a nice quote,

If you re-invent the square wheel, you will not benefit when somebody else rounds off the corners.
--Collyer & Spencer

PS: Henry Spencer is fun to read. Have you read his "Ten Commandments for C Programmers"?