Re: Are two sets of bumpers necessary?
 

I came in too late for the rotating light, but the bicycle flags were terrible. They'd hop out of the flag holder at the slightest provocation, and were easily masked by field elements and other robots. The flag holder, which was a dead simple 12" section of 1/2" PVC capped at one end, was also an inspection circus as many teams would forget to attach one to the robot. (Which is why I assumed the bumper rule simplification wasn't going to make inspection much easier. It's hard to get simpler than the flag holder, and folks were getting that wrong.)

As big a nuisance as the bumpers may be, they're still the best system I've seen for making alliance identification blatantly obvious to even the most casual observer and simultaneously making it so you don't have to search the whole robot for the team number. The reversible ones are a pain to make due to a lot of sewing on heavy fabric, but significantly reduce suffering at the competition.

Re: Are two sets of bumpers necessary?
 

Here is 3929's second set of reversible bumpers. They look better on the robot, but unfortunately the people with the cameras haven't uploaded photos yet. I'll add them when they come up.

Also, these bumpers were made by one student, in two days. Our Chestnut Hill bumpers sucked, so he remade them. Pretty fine job.



Example of poorly made bumpers...

Re: Are two sets of bumpers necessary?
 

I guess I should apologize here as WildStang painted their bumpers tie dye and put our team numbers on them in the beginning. It sounded like a good idea at the time that others took notice of.

Re: Are two sets of bumpers necessary?
 

Okay, so I'm convinced by the consensus. Our team did make the reversible bumpers this year, which would require another attempt to get down pat.

Thanks for the input everyone!

Re: Are two sets of bumpers necessary?
 

We've made blue bumpers and red covers for them that we can take on and off.

Re: Are two sets of bumpers necessary?
 

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Re: Are two sets of bumpers necessary?
 

2006 also had flags. Occasionally one would take a direct hit from a Poof.

I want to say that before the rotating lights, teams used large pieces of red/blue material to mark alliances--I also want to say that it was laminated paper. But that was WAY back in 1999 or so, so my memory could be way off.

Re: Are two sets of bumpers necessary?
 

We just started doing these fancy bumper latches.

http://www.teamneutrino.org/seasons/...robot/bumpers/

Re: Are two sets of bumpers necessary?
 

Wow...those are certainly impressive reversible bumpers. Before I looked at who posted I had tabbed the robot in front of you as the one bearing reversible bumpers. Wow.