[Carolyn_Grace]

<R7> F. The fabric covering the BUMPERS must be solid red or solid blue in color. Visually, the red or blue must be as close to the corresponding color in the FIRST logo as reasonable (i.e. to a reasonably astute observer, they appear similar). The only markings permitted on the BUMPER fabric cover are the team number (see Rule <R15>).


I did not pay as much attention to the markings on the bumpers so much as what color the bumpers were! It bothered me that there were teams with light blue bumpers or very dark blue bumpers and almost orange or maroon for the red.

Of course, this is nit-picky of me to be concerned with it, but it is annoying when our team has always made it a point to create a bee-utiful bot, down to the bumpers that we create, and this year we had to sacrifice a bit of our black and yellow (with a touch of purple and green) to go with the blue and red bumpers like everyone else.

Perhaps because this is just the first year for specified bumper colors they were a bit lax on the rule, and maybe they'll be more strict next year. After all, how a robot looks doesn't affect the game play, and inspectors should be more concerned with things that will affect how a robot performs.