Are you actually using bumpers?

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

If they were mandatory to be on your robot I would agree with you, but requiring an optional item to be shipped within a deadline of 6 weeks when some teams don't think they want to use them until week 5 or 6, just is not right by my thoughts.

If it is optional, I don't see why it can't be made after week 6, and brought to the competition when you arrive on Thursday.

To me, that boggles my mind.

What about teams who come to their first regional expecting to not use bumpers, and then want to use them between their first regional and second, or regional and Championship event.

Are they not allowed to make bumpers, cause they had to be made (and shipped with the bot) within the 6-week time?

Almost everything else is optional; why do we have to ship our (optional) CIMs with our (optional) kitbot frame? I think that it's pretty clear that the rules specify that bumpers must be produced within the limits of the robot construction rules. As such, the team that decides at their first regional that they want to use a bumper may construct it there, or they can use a post-competition fix-it window (but not the post-ship-date fix-it window) to make their upgrade. If they make it between the ship date and the first regional competition, they're cheating.