Re: Brainstorm: Improving the FRC bumper rules
 

Well, part of it is that bumpers protect both teams. In (a practice match) 2007, a team without bumpers drove onto our bumpers and broke our radio. I don't think this would have happend if they had bumpers. This may have been a freak thing, but their lack of bumper hurt our robot. So, you may take responsibility for protecting your robot, but you also have to take responsibility for protection the other teams that did choose to have bumpers (this includes make sure they don't get ripped).

I've been in FIRST since 2006 and each of our robots have been alteast 75% of the peraminter have been covered in bumpers. So, I don't know what it was like not having bumpers. What are the advantages to not having bumpers?

Re: Brainstorm: Improving the FRC bumper rules
 

Re: Brainstorm: Improving the FRC bumper rules
 

This was one of the earlier things under the "sharp edges" check
having bumpers shouldn't mean your off the hook for people finding ways around them accidentally.

alot slimmer profile, much higher ability to build your robot in a unique fashion.
If bumpers became optional chances are you may see 1625 with them, we just like being able to use them flexibly.

Our 2006 had bumpers on the right left and back sides, and none on the front, plus about 6" back on both sides. The ability to do that gave us a Full front pickup that rivaled 111's and they were a wide oriented robot.

In 2009 we immediately went for a wide robot partially due to the 6" minimum mandated on every corner. Going skinny would give us a very very small pickup compared to what we wanted.

If you noticed many many other teams did this and robots slowly began to look more and more similar...

I'm a fan of the 05 and earlier robots, they just look so much more athletic and awesome.

Re: Brainstorm: Improving the FRC bumper rules
 

But will you take responsibility to keep the bumperless rookie bots you play against alive?

Re: Brainstorm: Improving the FRC bumper rules
 

The ones that use the KOP frame. The old IFI ones were pretty much indestructible in my experience.

Re: Brainstorm: Improving the FRC bumper rules
 

I forget what year it was rookies were deemed incapable of making a robot with any level of ability.

And having a rougher interaction helps teach not only robust construction, but designing for ease of maintenance and replacement.

Re: Brainstorm: Improving the FRC bumper rules
 

I also don't have much of a problem with bumper rules. On the other hand, I had the "pleasure" of being knocked out of eliminations in 2007 and 2008 as a result of those flags, so I'm glad to see that they are gone. :o

While it was nice to be able to identify alliances with the bumpers, I think it did mess with the team identities a bit. Then again, this game lent itself to boxy, short robots. I think with a game with taller robots (e.g. 2009 or 2006) teams would have lots of space to display their usual colors/logo/etc, and the lack of personalized bumpers would be less noticeable.

Re: Brainstorm: Improving the FRC bumper rules
 

What if, in conjunction to Billfred's idea we make it so each corner of the bumper has to be a certain color. If we make it so that each side has to have 3"-4" of alliance coloring then it would be a solid 6"-8" on each corner. More than enough to denote who is on which alliance. Then the middle would be free to be decorated as teams saw fit.

Or (assuming that most robots are a 4 sided polygon...148 from 2008 and 1501 from 2010 would be an exception not the rule) we have opposing sides be colored for alliances, with the other two allowed for team decoration.

Re: Brainstorm: Improving the FRC bumper rules
 

If I was in charge of the bumper rules:

Section 8.Y BUMPERS.
<RXX> Bumpers are at the team's discretion. Only standard bumpers, as defined in <RXY>, are exempt from size/weight requirements for the entire robot. NOTE: While bumpers are not required, they are highly recommended. Teams that choose not to use bumpers may find their robots taking a lot of structural damage.

<RXY> Standard design is defined as:
a) 2 vertically stacked 2.5" pool noodles, or [reasonable substitute that is 5" high],
b) 3/4" thick by 5" high plywood backing for the noodles,
c) Cover made of tough, smooth fabric that covers the noodles and the top and bottom of the plywood backing.
d) Optional: angled aluminum may be used to help secure the bumper covers.
All components must be assembled as shown in Figure 8-Z.

<RCD> All bumper segments used must be at least 6" in length. A section of bumper is not a segment unless it has all of the required components.

<RXZ> Standard bumpers must be entirely within the BUMPER ZONE and securely attached to the FRAME PERIMETER.

<RBA> Standard bumpers should be removable by one person in about 10 minutes.

<RZX> Non-standard bumpers are allowed, but must fit within normal robot size and weight requirements.
a) The outer material should be soft enough that a normal human could punch it and not suffer serious damage, but stiff enough that said normal human can not drive the material into the backing.
b) Should the bumpers have anything capable of motion inside them, the inspectors will notify the referees. Use of the bumpers to tip other robots will result in being reinspected after the motion is removed, in addition to any on-field penalty.

<RAB> Numbers/decorations/colors on bumpers. Should a team use bumpers, they are required to have their number, sized according to <Rnumberrule>, upon at least one segment, in a contrasting color to the rest of the bumper. Other than that, there are no restrictions on color.

Other rules referenced:

FRAME PERIMETER: The polygon defined by the outermost vertices of the robot in the bumper zone, not counting bolts. As an example, imagine putting a rubber band around your frame in the bumper zone--the band defines the perimeter. [note: bolt exclusion would extend up and down--no tolerance for outside the size box, but inside, tolerance up to the thickness of the plywood.]

<Rnumberrule> Numbers shall be X" high by Y" stroke, in a contrasting color to the background, spaced at about 90 degrees from each other. Numbers shall be visible against a black background from 300'. NOTE: This means that if your robot is in front of a black background, and you can't see the numbers from 300' away, you're in violation of the rule.

[author note: 300' has been the guideline for a number of years. Black on clear contrasts, but darned if I can see it from 300' away on a dark background...]

Now, to solve the alliance ID issues:

KOP item: 4 color-changing LED strips.
<Rcolor> You must use all 4 provided LED strips, and the color must be visible from X feet away on all sides. Your base code will take care of changing the color. (Base code would include a call to find out the alliance and produce a red or a blue.)

Of course, I am not in charge of any rules, so this is just what I'd like to see.

Re: Brainstorm: Improving the FRC bumper rules
 

i've been the bumper maker for the past 3 seasons on my team, not only do i miss the personalization aspect, but the 2 color thing is just a pain. I made the mistake of making the colors switchable by flipping the fabric, but it was a slow and unreliable process. It actually took me 3 days to sew it all too!!!
I could have easily done one of the "skirts", but i foresaw ripping and snagging on other robots (which happened).
While its easy for me to find the materials in balmy California, my largest complaint is the color compliance (bring back the flags) and the frame perimeter. The first FIRST team that can send me a picture of legal bumpers with broken plywood because of another robot (again with standard bumpers) crashed into it will make me have a heart attack from suprise

Re: Brainstorm: Improving the FRC bumper rules
 

Frankly, I liked switching bumper colors for the alliance. It tended to be a pain, it really helped on the field, and off the field to see who's who. But similar bumpers (red & blue) tend to make all of the robots looks the same.

And I can just blame that on this year's game. I think that no matter if in '09, every team was using the same bumpers, each robot would definitely have looked different.

Regardless of what the rules will be, I still found a little interesting when a team at P'tree asked the ref if they would provided a second set of bumpers. Needless to say, I could see them frantically trying to locate some more pool noodles.

- Sunny

Re: Brainstorm: Improving the FRC bumper rules
 

Bumper zones signify contact zones. To me, it seems logical to force contact within the same zone on every robot so as to prevent teams from making contact zones as low as possible and thus tipping other robots.

There's also some math Dave did a while back, and the result is that a ~10fps 150lb robot can exert 10,000 psi of force onto an external object if the contact area is small enough. Thus, in the interest of keeping the fields and field components in tip top shape, bumpers are very necessary.

So Aren, I do trust you to keep your own robot in good health. Yet that doesn't mean your drivers will make decisions that are in the interest of all parties involved. (And by "your" I mean the overall FRC community of teams, not 1625.)

All I hope for moving forward is that we keep the bumpers. It keeps our robot prettier for the offseason.

Re: Brainstorm: Improving the FRC bumper rules
 

I'd like to see FIRST go back to bumper quantity rules like 2008.

I believe in 2008 something like 75% of your robots perimeter had to be covered by bumpers. This was a good trade off between function and protection and some teams used it to their advantage

Also, I never want to see a 10"-16" bumper zone again, EVER. I understand that having bumpers that high was the only way to make bump crossing work, but the side effects of this were just too much. It seemed like every other match some random defender would be pushing a machine up on one side of their drive and holding them there which was far less likely to happen with the lower bumper zone of 2008 and 2009.

As far as "Mandatory" bumpers go, I'm torn on the subject. There's part of me that doesn't like anything to be Mandatory, but at the same time I feel that bumpers make robots look better in most cases.

One thing I'd love to see added to bumper rules is a specific and required supplier for bumper fabric. Most teams use fabrics from the same vendors, but occasionally you'll see a machine with some random fabric that looks like crap and is clearly different that the standard fabric.

Red and Blue bumper colors were a cool idea, but I don't want to see it happen again. For as long as I've been watching FRC competitions I've never had a problem figuring out which team was on which alliance, but I can see how this could be a problem. Personally, I'm a huge fan of the old school rotating light from 2002-ish for differentiating alliances. I'm sure someone could track down a similar and more modern replacement for this.

I'd like to see bumper decoration restrictions go back to their 2008 and 2009 standards. We decorated our bumpers in both 2008 and 2009 and I think they looked great and we got a lot of compliments on them. I don't see why we shouldn't be able to do this now.

Re: Brainstorm: Improving the FRC bumper rules
 

I personally do not like that bumpers are mandatory, but that being said I'll assume that they will continue to be and answer accordingly.

1) I'd like to see the backing material rules relaxed. Allow people to use what they wish for the backing material and rigidly enforce bumpers staying in the bumper zone. Thus if the bumper breaks and droops then penalties will accrue.

I'd also like to see the 'soft' section materials include other options such as 2" memory foam.

2) Mounting should be the option of the teams, but should be required to be robust. Again, if it fails then teams should be penalized and not allowed to return to the field until it is robust enough to withstand 'vigorous' robot-to-robot interaction.

3) The rules for this year made most robots look alike, which is boring to the casual observer. While the alliance color is a good idea, I'd rather see 2 sets of LED string lights controlled by a spike signifying alliance color. I loved seeing the different bumper colors and the unique look some teams had prior to this year.


Again, if I had my way bumpers (and their additional weight) would be optional.

Re: Brainstorm: Improving the FRC bumper rules
 

We've never had much problems with the bumpers in past years. We always used them, with the exception of 2007 when we took off the side bumpers to facilitate getting on ramp bots. While I'm not a particularity a big fan of bumpers, I do see that they save where and tear on robots, and especially the field elements. And I thought that the bumpers this year made the alliances readily identifiable, and that's a good thing.

Our frames for the last 2 years have been held together with bolts, spacers and standoffs. the bolt caps extend about 3/16" outside the frame, but well within the box. Last year they where within the bumper zone and therefore allowed, since the bumper zone was low on the robot where the drive train was located. Inspectors where not real sticky on bolt heads behind the bumpers.

This year the bumper zone was 10" to 16" above ground level and therefore above the drive train area, so we had to add lexan spacers on our bot to cover those bolt caps, needlessly adding weight to a robot that already had weight issues. It's these spacers that I really dislike.

When the bumpers start to dictate the design of robots, I start to have problems with them. Having a "zero tolerance" for bolt heads protruding outside of the bumper zone, even when they are well within the box seems petty and useless, a "lawyers" interpretation of the rules; and we have in the past been admonished tor "lawyering" the rules.

It is my hoe that next year the GDC relaxes these rules a little, thereby giving inspectors some leeway for bolt heads and other minor protrusions. A more sensible and common sense approach is indicated.

I rest my case:)