Bumpers

[Nuttyman54]

Originally Posted by Hellfeier675

Our frame perimeter is covered bumpers.

Frame Perimeter: Wrap a piece of string around your robot at the level of the bumper zone, the string describes the polygon.

We would argue that having a recess in our frame, because the string does not touch that recessed frame member, that recessed frame member does not have to be covered by bumper.

We aren also basing this judgement off of past bumper rules, being that we only had to cover this bumper perimeter. These definitions are exactly the same as earlier years, and this year's height is identical to the height in the 2008-2009 definitions.

You are correct, the recess does not need bumpers. The line marked by the string that bridges the gap defines the line that needs bumpers (ie, the front of the gap). This gap is required to have a bumper across it because the string defines the BUMPER PERIMETER (even the part that's going across the gap is still considered your BUMPER PERIMETER), and you are required to have 100% bumper coverage of said BUMPER PERIMETER. Since your gap is larger than 8", you cannot legally put a bumper there, but you are still required to do so. You must put something in the gap such that a bumper can go across it to complete your bumper coverage and still have less than 8" unsupported.


The 2008 and 2009 bumper rules used the same definition of BUMPER PERIMETER, but they explicitly state that you are only required to cover 2/3 minimum of that perimeter (see rule <R08> K in 2009 and <R08> bullet point 6 in 2008). The string test was still the same, and the frame in question here would still have the string going across the gap, the difference is that that portion of the perimeter was not required to have bumpers if it was less than 1/3 of the total perimeter.

Last year and this year they require 100% coverage, which prevents cutouts in the robot frame.