[mman1506]

Originally Posted by Harshizzle

This seems to defeat the purpose of bumpers, at least how they've been used the past few years, doesn't it?

They used to guarantee about 6 inches of distance between "internal components" of robots. With this game, everything will always be inside the frame perimeter, but the grace distance that the bumpers used to provide doesn't exist. Teams will have to be careful to either build robustly, or be well inside the bumpers.

Bumpers may or not actually provide any protection.

This makes the real volume less than the stated volume.

I'm not sure I see your point...
At the start of the match all parts of the robot except the bumpers must be within the frame perimeter (which does not include the bumpers) as typical in FRC. The grace distance is still there. The only things that are vulnerable are frame perimeter extensions that deploy after the match starts as usual.