Quote:
Originally Posted by Gary Dillard
I just posted this to the Q&A:
Rule R15 states:....The numerals must be at least 4 inches high, at least in ¾-inch stroke width and in a contrasting color from its background....
The word color is singular in this rule; does this mean that the numbers can only be one solid color, or can a second color be used to help with the contrast - surrounding a white number with black or vice versa, for example - to make it more clearly visible.
I was told by one team at our regional (and observed other teams making modifications apparantly for the same reason) that they failed inspection because the numbers could only be a single color. Did anyone else have this problem?
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Gary, thanks for asking and bringing this topic up. To answer your question in a word, yes. All of us inspectors at Bayou had to go on was the printed word we had at the time. It pained us to have to tell teams that the GDC clearly wants only one single color for the bumper numbers. Several teams had either multicolor or outlined numbers which we deemed to be against the GDC wishes. I personally hated having to tell 1912 that they had to paint over the beautiful flame painted numbers that matched their shirts, their pit, and their overall image with stupid solid white numbers which didn’t look nearly as nice after they painted over them. I hated telling 1421 they had to cover over their black outline around their yellow numbers with yellow just because it was technically 2 different colors. There were many other similar examples. The lead inspector emailed questions to FIRST about whether or not outlined numbers were OK. He didn’t get a response until the regional was over.
For the record we based our decision on these words:
<R15> Teams shall display their team number on the BUMPERS in four locations at approximately 90-degree intervals around the perimeter of the ROBOT. The numerals must be at least 4 inches high, at least in ¾-inch stroke width and in a contrasting color from its background. Team Numbers must be clearly visible from a distance of not less than 100 feet, so that judges, referees, and announcers can easily identify competing ROBOTS.
Note that as you indicate the rule seems to use color as singular.
This Q&A question verifies that:
http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=14421
Note that the GDC added the word “single” in the Q&A response which is not the exact wording of <R15>
And finally, while not a rule and we would not have considered it unless the above Q&A answer confirmed it the intent of the GDC seems to be clear in Dave Lavery’s post here:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...5&postcount=27
This issue highlights the need for more training for all inspectors. It was clear at Bayou that the inspectors had no more inside knowledge of the bumper rules than did any of the teams. We could only call them as we saw them. I would expect this issue to be cleared up in a future team update or at least additional information provided to inspectors at the week 2 and beyond regionals.