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-   -   Bumper question (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=99386)

GaryVoshol 25-01-2012 21:21

Re: Bumper question
 
Letters and numbers are taller than they are wide. A 4 inch TALL number is not 4 inches WIDE, even a wide number like 0 or 8.

Plus, you have the extra 3.5 inches from the "end grain" of the bumper on the adjacent side.

junefish 25-01-2012 23:58

Re: Bumper question
 
Our bumpers last year had 2-4 inches of "fluffy" parts and they fit the requirements--the fluffy parts were noodles, however, so I'm not sure if that's what you meant.

Jon Stratis 26-01-2012 00:07

Re: Bumper question
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol (Post 1113594)
Letters and numbers are taller than they are wide. A 4 inch TALL number is not 4 inches WIDE, even a wide number like 0 or 8.

Plus, you have the extra 3.5 inches from the "end grain" of the bumper on the adjacent side.

True... however, look at what is more or less "normal" numbering (at least for our team, and I don't remember us being exceptionally large compared to other teams) from the past few years:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/36401
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/34968

Those numbers are about 1/3 of the long length of the robot (including the bumper corners), and over half the short length (plus corners) - that's well over what you can get with an 8 inch segment + corners.

mrlg220 29-01-2012 09:11

Re: Bumper question
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol (Post 1113594)
Letters and numbers are taller than they are wide. A 4 inch TALL number is not 4 inches WIDE, even a wide number like 0 or 8.

Plus, you have the extra 3.5 inches from the "end grain" of the bumper on the adjacent side.

I agree completely. Plus if you make block letters it will be much easier (round will take up too much space). Our 3464 has no 1s or 7s, but with block lettering and a bit of vertical stretch has enough room to spare. It's not overly distorted, either.

PAR_WIG1350 29-01-2012 18:38

Re: Bumper question
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis (Post 1113707)
True... however, look at what is more or less "normal" numbering (at least for our team, and I don't remember us being exceptionally large compared to other teams) from the past few years:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/36401
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/34968

Those numbers are about 1/3 of the long length of the robot (including the bumper corners), and over half the short length (plus corners) - that's well over what you can get with an 8 inch segment + corners.

Those seem rather wide, the slant seems to be the culprit. Also the spacing between your numbers could be reduced. Vertical, closer numbers should get you down to 8" easily.

Ed Law 29-01-2012 20:38

Re: Bumper question
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Ed Law (Post 1113441)
Al, Thanks for the quick reply. But the rule says minimum 3/4" stroke or my robot will not pass inspection. I hope the bumper rule is not going to force 4 digit teams to have minimum 10 inch bumpers just to be able to satisfy the bumper rule. That would be silly and unfair to high number teams.:)

It is taking FIRST a very long time to answer my simple bumper question in Q&A. While I can wait a little longer before I print numbers on bumpers, I can't keep waiting before I finalize on the robot design. Therefore I have decided to do the silliest thing and to let the bumper rule about size/stroke of the numbers decide how wide my front bumpers are just so we as a 4 digit team can fit our numbers onto the bumper. My front bumpers are now about 11.5 inches wide on each side which forced us to narrow our ball intake width.

Al Skierkiewicz 30-01-2012 08:09

Re: Bumper question
 
Ed,
Number should not drive your design. Please be patient.

engunneer 30-01-2012 08:51

Re: Bumper question
 
1 Attachment(s)
Quote:

Originally Posted by Ed Law (Post 1116137)
It is taking FIRST a very long time to answer my simple bumper question in Q&A. While I can wait a little longer before I print numbers on bumpers, I can't keep waiting before I finalize on the robot design. Therefore I have decided to do the silliest thing and to let the bumper rule about size/stroke of the numbers decide how wide my front bumpers are just so we as a 4 digit team can fit our numbers onto the bumper. My front bumpers are now about 11.5 inches wide on each side which forced us to narrow our ball intake width.

Totally agree with Al here. Something as simple as numbering should not drive your design decisions. 8" Bumpers plus the corner filling noodle is plenty of space for 4 digits that meet the rules (including being legible). Even if you don't have a corner noodle (which you should), you can still get legible digits into 8".

Attachment 11630

Hawiian Cadder 30-01-2012 09:00

Re: Bumper question
 
You could put two digits on each Bumper in the front.

engunneer 30-01-2012 09:26

Re: Bumper question
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Hawiian Cadder (Post 1116360)
You could put two digits on each Bumper in the front.

The Q&A answer specifically says you can't use disconnected numbers.
Quote:

Thus they may not be obscured in any way (disconnected, out of order, rotated, upside-down, mirror imaged, etc).

Chomantha1073 06-02-2012 19:35

Re: Bumper question
 
Team 1073 was freaking out about the new Q&A about this until we realized that we could write on the corner parts of our minimum length bumpers. Last year, our numbers took up a horizontal distance of about one foot. Using the 8 inches of frame coverage on each side plus the corner part, we found that we have roughly 11 inches to put our number into. By taking the decoration off of our number 1 and decreasing the width of the zero, we can easily fit our team number on one side. If teams decrease the width of their numbers, since there is no rule against that as long as it is legible, any number should be able to fit if the corner is included.

EricH 06-02-2012 21:41

Re: Bumper question
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Chomantha1073 (Post 1121236)
If teams decrease the width of their numbers, since there is no rule against that as long as it is legible, any number should be able to fit if the corner is included.

[R35] says you need to be careful with that statement. There are possibly a couple of problems.

1) Decreasing the width is OK, provided that the stroke width remains at 3/4" or more and the height remains at 4" or more.
2) The section on the corner is technically between Bumpers (no backing for about 2"). While I don't see too much of a problem with putting number in that area, the GDC might (the rule specifies that the numbers must be on the Bumpers). I haven't seen anybody ask that on Q&A, so I don't know for certain.

jvriezen 07-02-2012 12:35

Re: Bumper question
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by KevinGoneNuts (Post 1098641)
While I have you all here. I also have a bumper question. Attached is a picture of a bumper idea, after reading the rules it seems that this is alright? I want to be 100% sure. Does it seem okay to you?


Attachment 11290

This does not look ok to me. I'm assuming the blue parts are bumpers and the dimensions refer to the outer extreme bumper dimensions and not the elements/sides of the frame perimeter.

You must have 8" of frame on either side of each vertex. With an 8" bumper segment where the 8" also covers the corner space, you would only have about 5" of frame at the vertex.

Also, I see that the outer dimensions, which include the bumper are 28x38. Since happens to be the max dimensions of the robot *without* the bumpers, I think you may be confused, as this robot is about 6" smaller than it could be. That being said, I would recommend planning for no bigger than 27x37, because this gives you room for bolt heads and things being a bit 'out of square, because the inspector's sizing box (and the inspectors) are unforgiving about size (and weight)

jvriezen 07-02-2012 12:43

Re: Bumper question
 
I created a TrueType font specifically designed for FRC to fit on minimal bumpers (8" + 3 1/4" endgrain)

When scaled to 4" tall, the stroke is exactly 3/4" and the width of each digit is exactly 2". With a 1/2" space between digits, a four digit number takes only 9.5", easily fitting on a 11" bumper

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2630


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