[Jeff Waegelin]

I am in favor of the use of bumpers. I feel they are a good means of protection, they allow you to put less frame reinforcement in (and save weight!), and the extra weight down low helps keep a low CG. I have used bumpers each year for the last 3, and I'm glad I did.

On the other hand, I am not in favor of making them mandatory. I am a firm believer in letting teams make design choices themselves, rather than being limited by the rules. The more restrictions FIRST puts on robot design, the more homogeneous the field of competitors gets. Something like bumpers should be left as an engineering decision for each individual team. If you want to use them, you can get a lot of benefit, but it may be a trade-off with other design considerations.