Are two sets of bumpers necessary?

[engunneer]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Ethan,
The rotating lights were abandoned because they weighed 2 1/2 lbs and reguired about 3-4 amps. One side of the case was also one of the power supply leads. Bumpers are so obvious that even rookie drivers can tell who is on their alliance.

Not to mention the absurd size - it was pretty tough to find a place for it on the bot if you hadn't planned ahead.

In between those years, there have been a number of identifiers.
2008 had a flag you needed to place on your robot. The flag holder was annoying for short robots.
2009 used the trailer field component to identify alliance affiliation
2010 started the bumper colors per alliance.
Bumper colors are fairly superior.

[Nate Laverdure]

Originally Posted by engunneer

In between those years, there have been a number of identifiers.
2008 had a flag you needed to place on your robot. The flag holder was annoying for short robots.
2009 used the trailer field component to identify alliance affiliation
2010 started the bumper colors per alliance.
Bumper colors are fairly superior.

I'm still waiting for FIRST to adopt my projected pools of colored light idea

Cool bit of FIRST history in that thread, by the way.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by engunneer

In between those years, there have been a number of identifiers.
2008 had a flag you needed to place on your robot. The flag holder was annoying for short robots.

And at least at our events in 2007, if your flag fell off (like, I don't know, tangled into that completely not-tangle-hazard chained hanging rack), you lost your elevation points.

Bumper colors all the way. If you think the bumper rules are difficult to execute now, just imagine what electrifying* them would do.

*yes, I know, I know. But you get the point.