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Originally Posted by Tristan Lall
With regard to the bumper cuts, let me back up Billfred's assessment of the situation. <R35> specified that bumpers must be designed per the figure drawn; Q&As were issued for clarification of just how stringently that had to be followed. They stated: "The only cuts allowed in bumpers are vertical cuts, completely through the bumper, and perpendicular to the plywood. Bumpers may have gaps as shown in Figure 5-1 in <R35>." (from here), and reiterated this position quite clearly on several occasions.
You won't believe how many teams had issues with this. FIRST should have definitely made this stipulation in an update, and not just in a Q&A, but the teams have to realize that they're responsible for following <R35> in the first place—all the Q&A did was suggest how much leeway they ought to have at inspection, in terms of minor deviations from the rule. In this case, it was absolutely clear: vertical cuts only (i.e. beveled ends to clear the floor when climbing the ramp, horizontal cutouts to clear the crest of the ramp, etc. were illegal).
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My team read and knew that rule in the manual, but we decided to just cut away that part of the bumper anyway. At Wisconsin and and the Championship we had no issues with judges commenting on the bumper design. I thought it was really interesting that nobody said anything about it. I'm not trying to brag about getting around a rule, but I am happy that we did, as the rule, like I said before, didn't really affect gameplay at all.