[NickCrispie]

In 2010, the bumper zone was 10-16 inches, much higher than it has been the past couple years.

Moving the bumper zone to 1 inch above the floor is not necessarily a bad idea, but if the change were to take place, the bumper zone upper limit would likely have to be simultaneously moved down to 9 inches (or lower). Bumpers are constructed to be 5 inches tall, and the bumper zones are so spaced such that there will be a minimum of 2 inches of overlap no matter where each team puts their respective bumpers, limiting robot-bumper contact and instead ensuring safer bumper-bumper contact. While flexibility in the rules allows for innovative designs to be developed, if the bumper zone was given too much freedom, the safety objectives that the rules are meant to ensure would likely be compromised.