Bumpers here to stay?

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by BBnum3

My team read and knew that rule in the manual, but we decided to just cut away that part of the bumper anyway.

So you knew it was a rule, but you decided to violate it anyways? This is what we call "cheating".

Originally Posted by BBnum3

I'm not trying to brag about getting around a rule, but I am happy that we did, as the rule, like I said before, didn't really affect gameplay at all.

This is what we call "someone being happy about cheating".

I'm sorry to be harsh, but this is ridiculous. FIRST has a lot of rules that people don't like. Just because we don't like them, we still have to obey them. If not, we're punishing teams for taking the time to stay within compliance. Examples this year include the fix-it windows. Many teams disagreed with the logistics of these, and could have violated them easily. Despite their disagreement with the rule, they obeyed them.

Let's face it, most of the rules in our competition can be broken very easily. We rely on the gracious professionalism of our participants, to ensure these rules are adhered to. When a team decides to break a rule that is hard to enforce the only group that suffers are the honest teams who upheld the rules. Do you really want to be a part of that?

[chrisinmd]

I had mixed feelings about bumpers when we shipped, I didn't think we would need them, but at Pittsburgh (our first regional) during practice matches we got hit pretty hard. Luckily we brought the stuff to make them so we frantically worked to get them finished for qualifying matches. They helped so much and also helped to keep the balls out from under the bot. In a practice match we didn't have bumpers and a ball got under our gears and we were stuck, the only thing we could do was shred the heck out of the ball (oops!). I thought they were a good thing, but they are definitely not an excuse to ram.

-Chris

[Dylan]

I certainly hope that bumpers are here to stay, they probably saved alot of robots from being smashed this year. And whatever the game, there will always be robots smashing into each other. If bumpers are not featured next year, I'll bet some teams will be building their robots to allow for bumper space, and still be within the size specs.

[Zoheb N]

i admit the bumpers were helpful to protect your robot from being smashed up from being hit, but i believed it sort of said it is fine to go ram a robot as long as you use a bumper. Now I am not trying to shoot down bumpers, but when you get robots who's sole goal is to ram you with their bumpers and try to tip your bot that is not really accomplishing the game.

[MikeJ675]

I don't mind the bumpers, but I dislike the 15lb weight advantage for using them.

If bonuses are given for them, why not for using the camera or one of the other special parts we get each year?

The weight limit should be steady. The max weight + battery(due to inconsistant weights between batteries)

The weight bonus is the main problem I have.

If you'll excuse the use of a robot combat related example, here I go-

Spining weapon robot A faces fast wedge B. Due to the rules, B was able to add 15lbs of armor to their robot, while due to the nature of A, it is impracticle. B has gained 15lbs more worth of pushing power and protection. It is also now going to react to the impact different. When A hits B, roughly 50% of the energy goes into each on a horizontal impact. A will now move farther and faster than B due to B's weight advantage.

To go on to another kinda off kilter point-
Why not give weight bonuses or penalties for certain types of scoring mechanisms? Obviously some are heavier than others as well as sometimes more difficult to make. Why shouldn't they be rewarded for their extra effort?


To close-
If you can't build it to survive the game within the normal weight restrictions, you aren't trying hard enough.

[JackN]

I could see bumpers staying on as a part of FIRST, but if FIRST gets rid of the wedge rule, I could see them disapering again.

[Aaron D.]

well I hope that FIRST allows bumpers to stay, they really are helpful and I sure hope the wedge rule stays had that been in effect in 2003 houston might have been a different story for us on einstein

[eugenebrooks]

Originally Posted by MikeJ675

I don't mind the bumpers, but I dislike the 15lb weight advantage for using them.

The weight advantage was explicitly indicated at our kickoff as encouragement for using bumpers. FIRST's goal with the bumper specification was to define contact points between robots in a manner that would minimize damage, and to use the weight advantage as an inducement for teams to include bumpers in their design. If we had to include the weight of the bumpers in our weight budget, we would never had included them and FIRST's goal of a well defined contact point between robots that minimizes the chances of damage due to robot interaction would not have been served.

I think that the shock of high speed ramming can damage the internals of a robot, even with the bumpers, and I think that the rule against high speed ramming should be enforced regardless of whether or not a robot has bumpers. We had the drive shaft of our turret pan motor bent by an impact, in spite of bumpers, although it did not take our turrent out of operation. It easly could have.

It is easy to see that aggressive robot contact between robots without bumpers has a greater chance of causing damage, and I can understand a higher degree of sensitivity on the part of referees in this instance. Their goal is to prevent robot damage during play...

I think that the bumpers were a smashing success this year! :-)

I have enough experience without bumpers to look forward to seeing "weightless" bumpers in the robot rules next year.

Eugene

[Jeremiah Johnson]

The bumpers saved our robot in WMR... lowering our CG and being able to take some beating. But I only think they should be available in games where there is a wide open field like this year. Last year there really wasn't a use for them. It was much harder to ram at high speeds in 2004 + 2005. 2003 would have been nice to have bumpers though. But the robustness of the robots would probably have been compromised.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by Karthik

So you knew it was a rule, but you decided to violate it anyways? This is what we call "cheating".

I'm sorry to be harsh, but this is ridiculous. FIRST has a lot of rules that people don't like. Just because we don't like them, we still have to obey them. If not, we're punishing teams for taking the time to stay within compliance.

Precisely. Other teams, like 1188, measured and designed for bumpers. We kept our wheelbase short to allow the bumper to clear the breakover at the top of the ramp. We knew our measurements were close, and sure enough, when we tried to go up the ramp the rear bumper caused the robot to get stuck. We had to remove that bumper, and only go with 3. If we could have made the bumper only 1.5 noodles high, we could have used it - but that wasn't allowed within the rules.

[Tetraman]

Bumpers were needed in this game because half of the game was defence. Thats why your robots were saved from damage, thats why your robot did so well in defence.

Other games didn't depend on so much defence, so the need for bumpers will go away with the less need for defence. How much chassis-to-chassis defence was there in tripple play? I don't think I would want teams to have to build a robot that includes bumpers every year. I wouldn't want it to be a "So lets get started on building a chassis with bumpers." I would want it to be a "Lets work on a robust chassis."

If bumpers stay, it will limit the imagination of chassis design. It will force to work within the bumpers just to save it from being pushed around.

[Donut]

Originally Posted by Tetraman

Bumpers were needed in this game because half of the game was defence. Thats why your robots were saved from damage, thats why your robot did so well in defence.

Other games didn't depend on so much defence, so the need for bumpers will go away with the less need for defence. How much chassis-to-chassis defence was there in tripple play? I don't think I would want teams to have to build a robot that includes bumpers every year. I wouldn't want it to be a "So lets get started on building a chassis with bumpers." I would want it to be a "Lets work on a robust chassis."

If bumpers stay, it will limit the imagination of chassis design. It will force to work within the bumpers just to save it from being pushed around.

The bumpers don't really limit how you can build your chassis, they just force you to think of a way to attach them if you plan on using them. I seem to remember Hammond having quite an unusual bumper configuration on their robot.

[Dylan]

Originally Posted by Zoheb N

Now I am not trying to shoot down bumpers, but when you get robots who's sole goal is to ram you with their bumpers and try to tip your bot that is not really accomplishing the game.

You can be penalized for intensionally tipping over a robot, so I'm not sure that this issue ^ is caused by bumpers too much.

[BBnum3]

This is for all those who read my earlier post and had any thoughts or comments on my team's bumper design.

Please don't worry. We didn't cheat. It was because of my lousy writing that I gave that impression.

I completely understand the outrage felt by many at my misrepresentation of the facts. If I read that post I would have thought that a team was proud of cheating and would've felt the same way. The way I clumsily wrote, it sounded like I said that we deliberately broke a rule in order to gain an advantage for our robot. We didn't. I want to relay the whole story of how my team arrived at our bumper design, because I feel that it is necessary that I clear up this whole issue.

Here's the story:

One of our mentors decided to cut the bumpers with a cut that ended up not being perfectly vertical. With the Cordura fabric wrapping the cut, the bumpers looked vertical to all of us, and apparently the inspectors thought so, too. There was no intentional deception. Our robot passed inspection with those cuts on the bumpers. I thought that if our robot passed inspection with those bumpers that they could not possibly be illegal. After this my team pretty much forgot any issue with our bumpers. At the Championship event our team again passed inspection with the same bumpers. The topic of bumpers never once came up at the Championship, no mention (as far as i know) by any inspectors or any other teams.

I'm not that great of a writer. I was trying to go too fast in my original post, and disgraced myself and my team. When I said we knew and had read the rule I was wrong. The whole issue with cheating is entirely due to my poor wording, and not to anything my teammates did. I feel really bad about this whole thing, and hope that I can learn from this experience, because, plain and simple, I did something stupid.

[team222badbrad]

222 has gone without bumpers Oh, since we started in 1997 and we have not needed them yet so why start using them now?

We have gone to over 45 competitions over the years and have been in many rough matches; beat on us, ram us, push us, tip us over we don't care.

If any rule should apply to building a robot frame it would be KISS.

I have seen many complex or weak frames get bent and every year we have built box frames from various sizes aluminum angle because we know it works!

This year I also saw many teams with bumpers get caught up on the field, especially the ramp.

In the future we will most likely not use bumpers unless forced or we see a good reason to use them, for example if we needed to increase our weight.