[EricH]

Originally Posted by Chris Hibner

Your memory is pretty good. I'm pretty sure the first year for optional bumpers was 2000. Back then there was no mandatory construction method, so ChiefDelphi use a carbon fiber (I think) skirt to act as their bumpers under the rules that year: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/12941

As I recall the later bumper rules (say, the 03-05 bumper rules), if you wanted to use a bumper, it had to make weight with the rest of the robot and had to not be made of hard material, or something like that. I don't remember if they got an "outside the box" allowance or not. And I think that skirt sure looks like sheet metal, where the team nametags aren't...

Though I do seem to remember hearing about somebody building bumpers that acted as weight transfer devices: you drive into them, they lift you up slightly.

2006 was also the first year that bumpers didn't have to make the robot weight. A lot of people figured out that you wanted more weight for a variety of reasons relating to CG and immobility, and so a lot of robots carried bumpers even though they were optional.


Oh, and Jesse: Seconded on the cones. Traffic cones, athletic cones--just get some cones in there. (Hide a kitbot in a road barrel--if both alliances catch it as it drives around at the end of the game, coopertition points.)