I think this probably bit a fair number of teams coming out of Alamo. I know it also bit 3103, Iron Plaid, when they were inspected at Lone Star. They had the exact same butted construction pass at Alamo, and it too was ruled illegal in Week 3, but at Lone Star. Which is frustrating because I help those girls out and I posed this EXACT question to the GDC and got what I THOUGHT was a go ahead for it. I'm not really sure how else I was supposed to take
this exchange on the Q&A:
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Originally Posted by 2011FRC0057
Single piece bumpers
Is it permissible to build a set of bumpers such that they form a single solid framework that can be lifted on/off the robot? Two proposed construction methods would be:
1. Build a rectangular frame out of 5" tall, 3/4" thick plywood. The ends would be butted and screwed/glued together. Thus, there would be 3/4" of "unsupported" bumper at each corner sticking outside of the frame perimeter.
2. Build a rectangular frame out of 5" tall, 3/4" thick plywood. Leave the corners empty, and attach the pieces at the corners with angle brackets. This removes the 3/4" of unsupported bumper, but adds some angle brackets to the bumpers.
Option 1 may or may not comply with R07-K and L. Compliance with K hinges on whether a <8" unsupported section of bumper must be supported on both sides by the frame perimeter. Compliance with L depends on if the 1" extension is strictly perpendicular to each segment of the frame perimeter, or if it's more a 1" offset outside the frame perimeter polygon.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by GDC
Re: Single piece bumpers
The purpose of this forum is to clarify rules and answer questions about intent behind rules. We will not provide specific answers regarding how rules are administered.
Generally speaking, there are no rules that prohibit one-piece BUMPER ASSEMBLIES.
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I ended up assuming the positive second paragraph was the answer. Apparently I should instead have stuck with the non-answer first paragraph and told Iron Plaid that the none of the Q&A answers actually have any bearing whatsoever on how the rules are actually administered at competition. And thus.... something.
Which is sort of the problem with some of the GDC's non-answers to questions that should really be fairly easy for them to answer. Especially because there apparently IS an answer from FIRST HQ on the legality of Option 1 there.
You'd think they might have told me that two months ago when I asked.
Yes, I know the GDC doesn't want to get bogged down with making 200 specific rulings on 200 specific design questions that are actually covered by the rules. That's why I went to all the trouble of laying out my reasoning and interpretation of R07-K and R07-L in the question. I did, in fact, want them to clarify one or both of those so we could all understand the intent and move on with our lives. That they completely failed to do so while declaring that was what they're there for was somewhat less that impressive. That someone up there apparently DID have the specific clarification I was hunting for is just a bit annoying.
I like to think that all my questions of the GDC have a purpose and point to specific areas of the rules in need of clarification, but they clearly don't agree. So, if anyone with inside information is reading this, I'd really like to know exactly how I AM supposed to word my questions so that they'll get an actual response instead of the form letter "we don't rule on specific designs". If I have to format them all in abstract terms with no reference to any proposed design, I'm willing to do so. I think it makes the whole thing that much harder to understand, but I'll do it just to get some reliable answers out of them.