bumper fold? Is there any specifics?
 

My team's advisors have been saying that there is a specific way to fold the bumper material in for specific uses, like for extending the bumper out a little bit. I was wondering if anyone has seen this section or if there is any place i could find this information.

Thanks for the help!

Re: bumper fold? Is there any specifics?
 

All of the bumper rules are in <R08>, Section 8, Game Manual. For clarification of any of them, look at the Q&A (though if you can wade through it... let's not go there.)

When you say "extending the bumper out a little bit", what do you mean? Do you mean moving the entire bumper away from the frame, moving the bumper with the frame, or making the bumper thicker?

Re: bumper fold? Is there any specifics?
 

There are instructions on folding the bumper fabric for the bumpers on the trailer. This fold is not required for the robot bumpers. But if you would like to cover the entire backing of the bumper, you could probably use the same fold method.

This fold is shown in the set of the official FIRST field drawings available here: http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc....aspx?id=11624

The file you want is GE-09038.pdf

Re: bumper fold? Is there any specifics?
 

There is no specific fold required for robot bumpers (but yes for the trailer bumpers, as posted above- this might be what your mentors were thinking of). We usually fold the fabric on ours like how you wrap a present, if that helps.

Re: bumper fold? Is there any specifics?
 

yes, this all helps. Thank you all.

what i meant by extending the bumper was that the pool noodle extends out to cover the corner instead of having uncovered corners, which is considered illegal.

Re: bumper fold? Is there any specifics?
 

There are two ways to do that legally. 1) Cut your main noodles long and cover them. 2) Put a vertical section of noodle in the corner area and cover that. At least one method is in <R08>.

Re: bumper fold? Is there any specifics?
 

We use the second method and it works just fine. Also, we had to redo our bumpers sooooo many times because first, we couldn't find the maximum and minimum height of the bumpers so we figured it was last years. Then, someone realized that in the definitions in the begginning of section 8 the definition of the bumper zone was 1 - 7 inches. So don't make the same mistake we did. O and make sure you have the right side of fabric you want before you staple.