Teams: Check Your Bumpers

[Brandon Holley]

As I read this thread, I began chuckling to myself because stepping back and thinking about what we are discussing, it seems insane to me. There are so many rules that govern bumpers, yet questions still remain.

Here's one thought I had regarding bumpers:
There is a requirement for bumpers to be visible on all 4 sides of a teams robot. This seems like a pretty decent requirement when you consider what it would be primarily used for, identify teams. Identifying teams from the stands, while important, tends to take a backseat to identifying teams on the field for referee/FTA purposes. However, it is my understanding that penalties will not be tracked this year on a robot to robot basis. Technical fouls/yellow/red cards will be assigned to teams but general penalties occurring on the field will not be tracked at all. The penalty will simply be flagged at the time it occurs and the penalty assessed to the offending alliance.

I guess my grief comes into play identifying a robot on the field. Do all 4 sides need to be 100% absolutely crystal clear for the refs to do their job and for teams to identify other teams from the stands? It seems many teams have had issues squishing the numbers onto the front/back of their long configuration robots. Would it be an absolute travesty if the numbers in those situations were a bit smaller, or a little less clear? There would presumably be at least 2 other sides with very clear numbering. Of course all of this assumes you have direct line of sight to the numbered bumper, which may not be true if the robots behind a bridge/fender/teammate/opponent.

I guess I just find the rules a little excessive with regards to numbering, especially when considering these numbers will not be used for on the fly penalty tracking.

A fair alternative:
In a case where a team cannot fit a number on the bumper easily, allow teams to place the team number on the robot itself somewhere above where the number on the bumper would be expected. I would think many teams could make this happen with relative ease.

\end venting session

-Brando