Bumpers here to stay?

[EricH]

Another con that nobody mentioned: corner intrusion. You have a perfectly legal robot, designed to flood the corner goal, and you have measures not to go in at all, but you have bumpers. You go to the corner and start flooding it, but then somebody shoves you in. You get DQ'd, just because the bumpers are 3.5" max and the rule is 3". Now, that was about the only game design issue, but it was serious. I'd like to see bumpers next year (again, nothing prohibiting teams from using ones other than the design, as long as those stay in the box), but with the field designed to allow for them.

[Ken Leedle]

The only disadvantage of bumpers is that the robot no longer will fit through most doors with them on.

They made this game playable. Without them, fast shooting teams would probably have been rammed just as much, and incurred much more damage. Besides, who wouldn't want an extra 15 lbs of weight at the bottom of the robot? I agree that they should have more flexibility in position. I do not think that one noodle bumpers would work as well because it would be possible for teams to have bumpers at different heights, negating the reason for having them.

[Pavan Dave]

I think they saves A LOT of robots and that it was a great idea, i just done like the ramming rules...

Pavan

[Dan Petrovic]

Bumpers kept us from tipping... multiple times. I like the idea of bumpers.

I just don't like the strict rules defining which noodles you MUST use and which material you MUST use and all that.

[spears312]

I definitely see the bumpers coming back next year. They really helped prevent frame damage for frames. It's also nice to have the weight advantage. With them though, there aren't as many head on metal to metal collisions as there used to be, and they may start giving reason to weaken the frame. Overall they are pretty good add on and provide for some interesting new strategy.

[sciencenerd]

I believe that whether bumpers come back another year or not depends on how much contact has been designed into the game next year. I think the main reason the GDC allowed them this year was because they were able to see that there would be a lot of robot collisions one way or another (compared, for example to last year) and knew something had to be done to minimize damage. If next year's game is anywhere close to as big on defense, the bumpers will probably be back. If not, I doubt they will be kept.

[TopRamen1138]

Yeah, Kaneo, you know that the one time we ran into that ramp, and broke the frigggin' lexan, it hit us right where there was no bumper; and it killed our collectorwheelthingy... Plus, if the robot got out of control, I wouldn't hesitate as much to stick my leg in its way if it were going to hit something/body because bumpers are squishy. Aluminum, not so.

[BBnum3]

I really liked the bumpers this year and I hope they come back next year. I think that a lot of "ramming" with bumpers would cause less damage than a little "ramming" without them. My team used them as we were a defensive robot and they worked out nicely. They also help to absorb some of the shock caused by collisions.

Originally Posted by Billfred

Some of the rules about bumpers were
annoying to me. If they were to allow some angled cuts (no obvious wedges, though), and also authorize a one-noodle version of the bumper for those times when you want more clearance, I could stand to see them return.

From what I saw with my team, angled cuts weren't illegal, that is if we're talking about the same kind of angled cuts. You can see on this picture of the robot that the back 1/4 of our bumper is only one noodle. We did this so we could get on the ramp at the end. I'm glad that we didn't have to change this because the open space in the back of our bumper didn't really affect contact outside of the bumper zone. I hope that next year angled cuts are allowed, too, because it doesn't really change game play if they are disallowed.

[Jonathan Norris]

I believe that bumpers are here to stay, they provided much needed protection in this years game. Without bumpers I believe that this years game would have played very differently if bumpers were not widely used and the wedge rule had not been put in place. The defense would have been overwhelming otherwise. If defense is a key part of the game bumpers are needed.

The only downside I can see to the implementation of bumpers is how it hurts creativity in the design of a robot. Over the years one of the most innovative parts of the robots has been the many amazing defense and protection innovations by teams. This year the bumpers and mainly the wedge rule eliminated that part the creativity of robot designs. I hope to see the reinstatement of wedges and defensive components in the future. Some of the best matches I have ever seen happen between a defensive and offensive powerhouse.

[=Martin=Taylor=]

I think it really depends on the game.

I personally found the bumpers a little bit of a nuisance when it came to getting up the ramp and collecting balls. If next year's game requires climbing something steep I don't see them as an advantage.

I don't think they really protected our robot that much, seeing how we only had them on the sides and we only got hit on the front and back. Which oddly wound up being the only parts of the frame that didn't get bent...

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by BBnum3

From what I saw with my team, angled cuts weren't illegal, that is if we're talking about the same kind of angled cuts. You can see on this picture of the robot that the back 1/4 of our bumper is only one noodle. We did this so we could get on the ramp at the end. I'm glad that we didn't have to change this because the open space in the back of our bumper didn't really affect contact outside of the bumper zone. I hope that next year angled cuts are allowed, too, because it doesn't really change game play if they are disallowed.

Going from what I can tell from the picture, such angled cuts are the ones that are currently disallowed (source) but should be permitted.

[Nita]

Originally Posted by Ken Leedle

The only disadvantage of bumpers is that the robot no longer will fit through most doors with them on.

My team had a little trouble with that and had to remake the bumpers 3 times in order to get a set that was easy to put on and take off...

I liked the bumpers because it added more mass towards the bottom of the robot and also kept most things from getting under the robot.

[Gabe]

Wouldn't bumpers be a hindrance when trying to get across obstacles like a 4" by 4" on the ground or some stairs? Next year there has to be rougher terrain as part of the challenge (no, not water ). It seems that bumpers would not be so good in those situations.

We did not use any bumpers this year because we decided that instead we should reinforce the chassis some more, which we think helped us by having one less thing to worry about on the field.

[Cactus_Robotics]

Yea w/o bumpers our team didn't have enough weight to get on the ramp and they definitely help in the ways of pushing and protection from the frame bending. So bumpers = good idea

[Tim Arnold]

Originally Posted by Cory

I hope not--having bumpers practically invited teams to ram the heck out of each other.

contact that would never have been allowed last year was practically encouraged this year. At every one of our events we ended up with robots driving on top of the insides of our robot, and ramming our subframe.

Obviously we chose to lose some protection by not using bumpers, and we fully expected for the outside of our robot to be brutalized. We never planned on part of that loss of protection to mean the inside of our robot could legally be torn up.

Although I like bumpers (ours went through SEVERAL attachment processes as they kept breaking... I think the final way to hold them on was drywall screws (we tried concrete anchors, zip ties, bolts, wood screws, etc.)), there is a very interesting read about this subject on D*mn Interesting called "The Balance of Risk":

Originally Posted by DamnInteresting

What’s happening is a process known as risk compensation. It’s a tendency in humans to increase risky behavior proportionately as safeguards are introduced, and it’s very common. So common, in fact, as to render predictions of how well any given piece of safety equipment will work almost useless...

The article goes much more in depth. Good read.