Are the mandatory bumpers helping or hurting?

[octothorpe]

Originally Posted by iCurtis

Having a bumper over your frame didn't limit intake of this years game piece, or at the very least, shouldn't have. We lifted our ball over our bumper in the process of collecting.

This was not true for our team. We found ourselves butting heads with the mandatory 2/3 bumper rule, because we wanted to make a low-profile robot with a fork-lift style front that the ball could roll into. Even when we pushed our bumpers as far back as possible, the 2/3 rule prevented us from allowing the ball to slide as far into the robot as we had wanted. We specifically asked the GDC about rules regarding this design and it took them an entire week to respond about how the 2/3 perimeter rule would be interpreted – and then this was never checked at inspection.

I think a major point missed in this discussion is that teams could leave more than an entire side of their robot uncovered by bumpers. While many teams chose to add bumpers on four sides, those who did not can still inflict the same metal-on-metal damage to each other and to the playing field. So even though bumpers may reduce the potential for damage, they cannot prevent it unless they are required around the entire robot perimeter. With this in mind, it is clear to me that the "illusion of safety" inducing drivers to behave more recklessly is an especially serious concern.

I do think that bumpers are generally good for protecting robots, and I support teams who use bumpers to their fullest extent. For the past three years, my team has used bumpers covering the left and right sides of our robot for protection. But when we didn't put bumpers on the front or back, that was also for a reason – we designed the robot to be sturdy enough without them, and chose to prioritize other aspects of the design.

To echo the other posters: bumpers are good, but they should NOT be mandatory. If you want to protect your robot, use bumpers. If you want to achieve greater design flexibility, then don't. It's not hard.