[ALIBI]

Bumpers (R08) are part of the robot (R13) and will be considered in the measurement if located on the robot where the 80" horizontal dimension (R16) maximizes. You can maximize the room available for your manipulator by leaving the bumpers off the opposite side. Right now you can do that without breaking any rules as long as any parts of your robot located within the bumper zone that are not covered by bumpers are within 10 degrees of vertical (R19). In addition, all bump to pass signals (G38) must be made with or against a standard bumper and inside the bumper zone. My guess is that when a team leaves the bumpers off to maximize the 80 inches, it will most likely be what becomes the rear of their robot. In order for another team to signal them to pass, the signaling team would only be able to signal if it had bumpers on the front of its' robot (doesn't make sense to signal from the side, you are all ready past them). At the same time, due to other types of manipulators, I can easily see teams that will leave bumpers off the front of their robots which will make it difficult to signal to pass a robot that does not have bumpers on its' rear. I realize that these are all design decisions and tradeoffs are necessary. You can build a succesful robot within these limits.

It seems like R16 (80" cylinder) and R08 (standard bumpers) are un-necessarily opposing eachother. R08 encourages teams to maximize their use of bumpers and R16 seems to discourage the use of bumpers and may make it more difficult to comply with signaling to pass. Another benefit to bumpers is the protection they provide. You could end up with a lot of exposed hard corners on the rear of many robots.

My ramblings have lead me to wonder whether or not R08, R13 or R16 should be modified to somehow leave standard bumpers out of the requirements of R16. Does anyone else see any wisdom in doing that? If a team has all ready decided to leave the bumpers off to maximize their 80 inches, what harm would changing the rules to allow them the opportunity to add bumpers be? I realize that there may be teams that designed to include bumpers and their manipulator to comply, but wouldn't they like to get another couple inches anyway?