Rookie Team Passing Inspection (video)

[seg9585]

popnbrown --
We thought the same thing, min 8 inch bumpers -- but ready [R27] carefully:

[R27] Robots are required to use Bumpers to protect all exterior vertices of the Frame Perimeter. For adequate protection, at least 8 in. of Bumper must be placed on each side of each exterior vertex

The "exterior vertex" refers to the chassis (interior bumper vertex) and not the outside of the bumper. To overlap the side bumper, our front bumpers had to be min 10.75 inches.
Also, the 8 inches cited need to be fully supported by the chassis/frame perimeter. Inspectors said it was permissible to essentially extend the frame by 2 inches using a piece of stock aluminum mounted to the existing chassis and then mounting that to the bumper.

We never saw any rules defining maximum letter sizing and bumper sturdiness either.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by seg9585

popnbrown --

We never saw any rules defining maximum letter sizing and bumper sturdiness either.

I was an inspector at Alamo this weekend and we had a lot of issues with bumpers. Here is rule for bumper attachment.

[R27] E. must attach to the Frame Perimeter of the Robot with a rigid fastening system to form a tight, robust connection to the main structure/frame (e.g. not attached with Velcro). The attachment system must be designed to withstand vigorous game play. All removable fasteners (e.g. bolts, locking pins, pip-pins, etc.) will be considered part of the Bumpers.

At Alamo we tried to be as lenient as we could while still ensuring that robots were safe and would not damage the field or other robots. I don't see how a number could be too wide unless it was wrapping around the side of a bumper or was not easily readable because of how it was skewed.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

I was an inspector at Alamo this weekend and we had a lot of issues with bumpers. Here is rule for bumper attachment.



At Alamo we tried to be as lenient as we could while still ensuring that robots were safe and would not damage the field or other robots. I don't see how a number could be too wide unless it was wrapping around the side of a bumper or was not easily readable because of how it was skewed.

There were some pretty rough looking bumpers there.
Bumpers are proving tougher to make than fat first thought. I think one problem is that bumpers are an afterthought more or less and when teams realize they have to make them it's at the last minute or at the event when they find out it's the one thing keeping them from the field.
Any team that is particularly good at could probably have a pretty good fundraiser designing bumpers for other teams.