[Chief Hedgehog]

Your robot can have an opening - yes. But all sides must have at least 8" of continuous backing from your frame. Not total of 8" of backing frame (i.e. - one side is 7" and the other is 7") - if you have a break:

Each side measured from the exterior corners must have at least 8" of continuous frame backing the bumper.

I wished that they would word it this way in the manual - but they don't. If each of your bumpers is less than 8" backed by a frame member, it will most likely be deemed illegal.

This last Saturday the leaders of FRC 4607 went round and round on this issue. We have a mentor that is a Robot Inspector and we also have a Junior that has built our bumpers in 2014. The Junior responsible for bumpers found an issue in our frame and brought it up to our mentor (Robot Inspector) and from what the Junior saw, we needed at least 8" of frame member from the exterior corner covered by a backed bumper. The design and build teams disagreed vehemently and so we conferred and then sought out a ruling from another Robot Inspector (JonStratis - LRI MN) and he confirmed this.

IF your robot has a break in perimeter, your robot will require at least 8" on either side of the break to be legal for the bumper rule!

This was a great learning experience for my team. During and the discussion - and then following it - I instructed my leaders this:

"Check the rules, check your emotions, and then verify with the inspectors. Trust, but verify."