Re: Bumper sets, skirts, or reversibles?
 

We have always done 2 sets but are tackling the reversibles this year. We have one of the schools classes (graphics) either silk screen or vinyl cut the numbers and put them on for us. Check with your school to see if there is a class that makes T-shirts and they should be able to help.

Re: Bumper sets, skirts, or reversibles?
 

Our team used reversible bumpers last year that used elastic bands that would wrap either over the top of the bumper or underneath the bumper depending on what color we needed and looped into small hooks attached to the back.

Re: Bumper sets, skirts, or reversibles?
 

The bungee on our 2013 bot was entirely inside the frame perimeter so it never came in contact with anything. We just put a couple of small bolts around the outside at the corners of the frame to hold the bungee from getting tangled with the wheels. We actually forgot to change colors until we were lined up to get on the field at MSC, but with two people it is about two seconds to swap colors.

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Re: Bumper sets, skirts, or reversibles?
 

I remember in 2010 when bumpers first became red/blue I independently came up with a reversible design as a rookie, but the way I made them wouldn't work because I didn't put a 45 degree "miter joint" on the fabric so we had to stuff extra fabric in to the space between bumpers. We gave up on the reversibles that year and just kept em on the blue side and used a red skirt.

Then in 2011, I re-designed the fabric to have the miter, and at the moment, nobody else, (or at least one or two teams, if my memory is off) at our main regional had reversibles yet, so we would purposely neglect to change colors when lining up at the start of a match, so we could show off our new bumpers on the field. It was fun seeing other teams who never saw reversibles gasp at the speed of our color changing! We also did it to implicitly spread the idea that color changing can be easy, and that you don't need to have skirts or two sets of bumpers.

Re: Bumper sets, skirts, or reversibles?
 

We tried reversible bumpers last year and really liked them.

For bumper numbers we got 4" white numbers from https://www.numbers4sports.com/ and ironed them on the Cordura. They looked really sharp. We were concerned that the Cordura would melt, but we didn't need super high heat to get really good adhesion.

Numbers4Sports gives you a price break when you order 10 of each number so it was also affordable. We needed 8 sets of numbers for the bumpers anyway and then screwed up ironing one set on (upside down, oops) so it worked out well that we ordered 10 sets.

Re: Bumper sets, skirts, or reversibles?
 

We had a really bad experince with reversibles last year. So we will be using drop pins this year. But I really want to go back to reversible bumpers so if you finish that white page I'd be eager to read and try at my home before showing the team.

Re: Bumper sets, skirts, or reversibles?
 

The basics of how to do reversible bumpers is shown in this thread. While not quite as in depth as a white paper would be, it's actually simpler than one would think. Changing to bungie rather than velcro would require MrBasse to elaborate though.

Re: Bumper sets, skirts, or reversibles?
 

You can purchase iron-on transfers that are laser-jet compatible. 2996 has done this for at least the last four years.

Re: Bumper sets, skirts, or reversibles?
 

I've been doing FIRST for 7 years now. I've used all of the above. Different sets in 2012, skirts in 2011 and 2013 and reversible in 2010 (for the record, I honestly forgot how we did it in 08 and in 09 we had a single white bumper. This was before the advent of the colored bumpers with team number on it requirement). Heck, in 2011, we had a rigid frame that dropped into place on the frame, and used the skirt (which ended up being too small!!!).

Not sure what we're going with this year, but I can tell you we will have distinct segments, whether we go full length or only worry about complying with the rules (> 8" from each corner).

Re: Bumper sets, skirts, or reversibles?
 

Our team (2177) has used reversible Velcro bumpers for the past few years and they work really well. I did make a white paper recently explaining how we make them. We have the numbers screen-printed on.

Re: Bumper sets, skirts, or reversibles?
 

We've used all of them, but in 2013 we used the reversibles with velcro. Worked great, changing colors only took seconds.

The "skirts" are annoying because you have to worry about not getting them tangled within itself and making it look good and flat without a ton of wrinkles, but a good option to save space nonetheless.

I wouldn't recommend 2 sets of bumpers, but sometimes if you're looking for really tight and clean looking bumpers, you might need two sets, but you can probably achieve a neat finish with the other two methods as well.

Reversible bumper white paper
 

We have a white paper on our reversible (velcro) bumpers at http://kbots.files.wordpress.com/201...ble-bumper.pdf

They are incredibly easy to change. We've had people in queue tell us "Hey, you guys need to change your bumpers!" "OK ... done."

Plus, they never come off, never get tangled, and always look good.

Re: Bumper sets, skirts, or reversibles?
 

Separate sets. Everything else looks bad.

Re: Bumper sets, skirts, or reversibles?
 

This is the same process that Team 3200 has been using for the last 2 years. We found it a large hassle to change out bumpers completly.

Re: Bumper sets, skirts, or reversibles?
 

Reversables FTW

We would also purposely come with the wrong colors to show off one of the only things that worked really well on our robot...