[Rick TYler]

The bumper rule this year gives us all an opportunity to protect our chassis and other robot bits without having to fit the protection within the footprint and weight limit of the core robot. I believe most of us think of this as a Good Thing. Even the most robust chassis can be dented by a solid whack from another similarly robust 'bot.

Using the specified bumper also opens up an opportunity that we chose not to exploit, but I am curious to see if anyone else did. The spec for the new bumper calls for a layer of .75" plywood covered by a foam layer. Properly attached to a subframe, that plywood could act as both a layer of protection and a structural member. If that plywood was something strong like BS1088 Meranti, connected to either a lightweight frame rail, or even via spacer blocks to a rail inside the robot's wheels it could become the outer frame rail of the robot. Connected properly, the plywood beam would replace structural material in the frame.

I'm waiting to see this in someone's design.