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Originally Posted by BBnum3
My team read and knew that rule in the manual, but we decided to just cut away that part of the bumper anyway.
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So you knew about the rule, and decided to break it? Knowing that other teams would follow the rule, putting them at a disadvantage against you, as they cut off their bumpers vertically?
The effect that it had on gameplay was that some teams could not climb the ramp because of their bumpers. As you say
here, you could. 25 points is a lot in a game - that angled cut in the bumpers could have made a huge difference in the success of some teams.
The season is over and done with, I know that this doesn't really matter much right now, but it still makes me cringe to see teams that don't follow the rules, don't let the playing field be level.
As to the issue of bumpers themselves, I would like to see them return. I feel that, as driver, it made me have to worry less about keeping the robot intact and more about actually defending against other robots. It made for a more exciting game, as well as making the robots more robust. As well, they are a nice way to display your team colours, and some teams really capitalised on that. My team referred to Waldo's robot as "the one with the red and white striped bumpers" - it made for easy identification. I know that my team wanted to make our bumpers out of kilt fabric, but then realised that it wasn't exactly strong nor polyester. We're working on getting some strong polyester in our tartan ordered for next year.
Some modifications to the rules may be in order, but I think that all in all, the bumpers were successful, and hope to see them make a triumphant return.