Lesson Learned 2016 - The Negative

[BoilerMentor]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Yes, that's the point of having the zone begin as high as it does. Any lower and the bumpers would be bumping some of the defenses. You were free to design your robot with its bumpers another half inch higher if you wanted to make it impossible to contact the defenses.

It sounds like you're not aware that bumpers cannot occupy the entire bumper zone. They are only 5 inches tall, while the zone is 8 inches from bottom to top.

Sorry, Alan, I wasn't clear. I'm well aware they legally can't span the whole zone. Our bumpers began at 4" from the ground and terminated at 9" (Actually it was more like 4.5-9 if you're measuring the backing, which was on the low side of the specified tolerance in the bumper rules). With this height and positioning they rarely contacted the defenses. If they'd spanned the zone 4.5" to 9.5" I doubt they would ever have contacted defenses.

My assertion is that FIRST made the bumper zone too large in vertical span. If it had been reduced in height about the current center of the zone, say from 5"-11" many of the red card situations for frame perimeter violations could have been avoided. I could actually get behind a set bumper height with a +/- 1/2" vertical tolerance.

The only reasonable excuse I heard for bumpers being at the maximum height position was to make the travel required to complete the scale smaller, since judgement was based on position of bumpers relative to the low goal. I'd, personally, have found a way to get the extra travel in the scaling mechanism, because the risk of high bumpers isn't worth it.