Bumper question

[Ed Law]

Originally Posted by Ed Law

Al, Thanks for the quick reply. But the rule says minimum 3/4" stroke or my robot will not pass inspection. I hope the bumper rule is not going to force 4 digit teams to have minimum 10 inch bumpers just to be able to satisfy the bumper rule. That would be silly and unfair to high number teams.

It is taking FIRST a very long time to answer my simple bumper question in Q&A. While I can wait a little longer before I print numbers on bumpers, I can't keep waiting before I finalize on the robot design. Therefore I have decided to do the silliest thing and to let the bumper rule about size/stroke of the numbers decide how wide my front bumpers are just so we as a 4 digit team can fit our numbers onto the bumper. My front bumpers are now about 11.5 inches wide on each side which forced us to narrow our ball intake width.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Ed,
Number should not drive your design. Please be patient.

[engunneer]

Originally Posted by Ed Law

It is taking FIRST a very long time to answer my simple bumper question in Q&A. While I can wait a little longer before I print numbers on bumpers, I can't keep waiting before I finalize on the robot design. Therefore I have decided to do the silliest thing and to let the bumper rule about size/stroke of the numbers decide how wide my front bumpers are just so we as a 4 digit team can fit our numbers onto the bumper. My front bumpers are now about 11.5 inches wide on each side which forced us to narrow our ball intake width.

Totally agree with Al here. Something as simple as numbering should not drive your design decisions. 8" Bumpers plus the corner filling noodle is plenty of space for 4 digits that meet the rules (including being legible). Even if you don't have a corner noodle (which you should), you can still get legible digits into 8".

[Hawiian Cadder]

You could put two digits on each Bumper in the front.

[engunneer]

Originally Posted by Hawiian Cadder

You could put two digits on each Bumper in the front.

The Q&A answer specifically says you can't use disconnected numbers.

Thus they may not be obscured in any way (disconnected, out of order, rotated, upside-down, mirror imaged, etc).

[Chomantha1073]

Team 1073 was freaking out about the new Q&A about this until we realized that we could write on the corner parts of our minimum length bumpers. Last year, our numbers took up a horizontal distance of about one foot. Using the 8 inches of frame coverage on each side plus the corner part, we found that we have roughly 11 inches to put our number into. By taking the decoration off of our number 1 and decreasing the width of the zero, we can easily fit our team number on one side. If teams decrease the width of their numbers, since there is no rule against that as long as it is legible, any number should be able to fit if the corner is included.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Chomantha1073

If teams decrease the width of their numbers, since there is no rule against that as long as it is legible, any number should be able to fit if the corner is included.

[R35] says you need to be careful with that statement. There are possibly a couple of problems.

1) Decreasing the width is OK, provided that the stroke width remains at 3/4" or more and the height remains at 4" or more.
2) The section on the corner is technically between Bumpers (no backing for about 2"). While I don't see too much of a problem with putting number in that area, the GDC might (the rule specifies that the numbers must be on the Bumpers). I haven't seen anybody ask that on Q&A, so I don't know for certain.

[jvriezen]

Originally Posted by KevinGoneNuts

While I have you all here. I also have a bumper question. Attached is a picture of a bumper idea, after reading the rules it seems that this is alright? I want to be 100% sure. Does it seem okay to you?


Attachment 11290

This does not look ok to me. I'm assuming the blue parts are bumpers and the dimensions refer to the outer extreme bumper dimensions and not the elements/sides of the frame perimeter.

You must have 8" of frame on either side of each vertex. With an 8" bumper segment where the 8" also covers the corner space, you would only have about 5" of frame at the vertex.

Also, I see that the outer dimensions, which include the bumper are 28x38. Since happens to be the max dimensions of the robot *without* the bumpers, I think you may be confused, as this robot is about 6" smaller than it could be. That being said, I would recommend planning for no bigger than 27x37, because this gives you room for bolt heads and things being a bit 'out of square, because the inspector's sizing box (and the inspectors) are unforgiving about size (and weight)

[jvriezen]

I created a TrueType font specifically designed for FRC to fit on minimal bumpers (8" + 3 1/4" endgrain)

When scaled to 4" tall, the stroke is exactly 3/4" and the width of each digit is exactly 2". With a 1/2" space between digits, a four digit number takes only 9.5", easily fitting on a 11" bumper

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2630