Bumper Rules on a U Bot Chassis

[mastachyra]

Word of this change needs to be spread more loudly, or many teams are going to have a major issue at competition. Our robot has been driving and picking up balls for two weeks and now we need to widen our chassis. This is a huge waste of time.

I'm currently looking at the rules we printed out on kickoff day, and this rule is unclear. I guess I interpreted the words "side" and "frame perimeter" to mean different things. The frame perimeter was clearly an imaginary line around the robot, but I took "side" to mean a physical side of the robot.

It was especially confusing because the rules say "If a side is shorter than 8 in., the entire side must be protected by BUMPER"

I can take a picture of the old figure 4-3: BUMPER Corner Examples if anyone is interested.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by mastachyra

Word of this change needs to be spread more loudly, or many teams are going to have a major issue at competition.

This isn't a change. This is how the rules have been written since the beginning - the only "change" is the addition of a picture to better explain the rule. The rules have been like this every year we've had openings in bumpers, going all the way back to at least 2009.

[dradel]

I find it hard to understand why teams are having so much problem understanding the bumper rules?

[engunneer]

Originally Posted by dradel

I find it hard to understand why teams are having so much problem understanding the bumper rules?

especially this year, there are two years of "Bumper Rookies" because there weren't bumpers last year.

There are a lot of bumper rules, but it's very hard to explain clearly in a way that doesn't get lawyered. I wonder if there is a white paper yet on how to check your bumpers for legality with pictures and a step by step procedure. That might be helpful for the rookies.

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by dradel

I find it hard to understand why teams are having so much problem understanding the bumper rules?

A few reasons.

1. There are twice as many teams this year who have never had to build bumpers. Both 2016 and 2015 rookies have never had to deal with the bumper rules.
2. This is the first season since 2012 that most teams have really needed an opening in the front of their chassis for an intake. In 2013 intakes were rare, in 2014 the ball was so large an opening was irrelevant, and in 2015 there we no bumpers. So we have 4 years worth of teams who have never dealt with the difficulties of having to have 8" of bumpers on each corner of your robot.
3. The bumper rules are not generally intuitive. If you don't give the manual a detailed review and analysis, it is very easy to misunderstand the definition of a Frame Perimeter

With all the questions about bumper openings I've seen on the Q&A, CD, and our team inbox, I worry that we're going to have a lot of teams who are rebuilding bumpers and/or their frame perimeter after their first attempt at passing inspection.

[ChuckDickerson]

Originally Posted by dradel

I find it hard to understand why teams are having so much problem understanding the bumper rules?

As do all of your friendly robot inspectors every year (except last year). Bumpers should be easy. There are several pages of bumper specifications and illustrations that have changed little over the last several years. In my experience as an LRI most bumper issues stem from teams not thoroughly reading and comprehending the bumper specifications in the beginning (at kickoff) and including them in their robot design from the start. Way too many teams put bumpers off until a build season week 5 or 6 after thought and then try to figure out how to make bumpers fit on their now locked in stone robot design instead of considering them a design constraint and including them in their robot design from the beginning. Even worse are the teams that walk in the door at their first competition with no bumpers and think they are going to design, build, and properly attach their bumpers at competition with materials they don't even have.

[engunneer]

Originally Posted by Karthik

With all the questions about bumper openings I've seen on the Q&A, CD, and our team inbox, I worry that we're going to have a lot of teams who are rebuilding bumpers and/or their frame perimeter after their first attempt at passing inspection.

RIs at every event would be really happy if teams with a little extra room in the truck could bring the bits to events to help teams make bumpers. Most events have a few bumpers worth of spare bits, but I expect the need to be higher this year.

If you have rookie teams in your area, and you know the bumper rules down pat, offer to visit and check compliance. Late in the season is better than at the first event!

[mastachyra]

Originally Posted by Karthik

3. The bumper rules are not generally intuitive. If you don't give the manual a detailed review and analysis, it is very easy to misunderstand the definition of a Frame Perimeter.

I don't think it was clear that the word "side" referred to the side of the frame perimeter and not a side of the robot structure.

[dradel]

I didn't think of the two years of bumper rookies.

[ChuckDickerson]

Originally Posted by Karthik

A few reasons.
If you don't give the manual a detailed review and analysis, it is very easy to misunderstand the definition of a Frame Perimeter.

Karthik makes a great point here. As an LRI I also find too many teams that don't understand the difference in their robots "frame" and the FRAME PERIMETER. The former is defined by the team and their robot design. The later is defined explicitly in the rules. Sometimes they are one and the same but often they are not.