Are the mandatory bumpers helping or hurting?

[Nawaid Ladak]

I don't like the bumpers one bit. they give FIRST a finesse look, like "oh, i don't want to get hit, i don't want my robot's paint coming off...(insert excuse here)". I remember back in 2004 and 2005, robots would get hit hard ALL the time and they would come back onto the field for another beating. That was because they could, the robot's now can't seem to do that for some odd reason, Kate is right as teams are using the bumpers as a false since of security. with the bumpers, first has turned a strong defensive approach to what defenses are forced to do in the pro bowl (no blitzes, cover 2 all the time). Kate is absolutely right that the robots are uniform.

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

Last weekend in Florida I saw SPAM taking a shockingly hard hit right next to me from their alliance partner SigmaC@ts. The impact broke the bumper. The robot itself was undamaged. Considering the violent collisions going on out there to not want bumpers is to openly court insanity!

I saw 108's hybrid and it was DESIGNED to go stright and stop just short of their opponiants driver station, i've seen it hit the drivers statin... so here is my question. if 108 didn't have bumpers, do you think they might have programmed their hybrid diffrently?

Originally Posted by sdcantrell56

I like the bumpers but I would like to see them be an option. A lot of teams, mine included build robots that don't need bumpers to keep from being destroyed and without bumpers, our machines can do a lot more easier. I think the decision to use them should be up to the teams.

Thats the same philosophy my old team (1402) used to employ, if you can't play with the big boys, then get off. if your team can't handle high speed hits, then teams won't pick you in eliminations.

seince we do have split sides, let us all unite and come to a proper compromise that could work. maybe go back to optional bumpers, like in 2006. it would coun't aginest your weight and size, but if you really wanted it, you would be able to protect your robot...

I would also like one more thing brought back... WEDGES.

I loved wedges, i remember on 1402's 2005 bot, we had a nice steep wedge. wedges are a tough lesson to teams that think they can play defense taht can't. i think wedges used to separate the contenders from the pretenders.

so in other words, give teams the option to have Wedges, Bumpers, or none, maybe even a combination of both...

I'm a big advocate of hard nose, black and blue defense.... Offense brings the crowds, but DEFENSE WINS CHAMPIONSHIPS.

my honest opinion: putting bumpers on robots is like buying a poor mans warranty for that robot. Building a durable, strong and consistent robot is a true warranty in itself.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Nawaid Ladak

seince we do have split sides, let us all unite and come to a proper compromise that could work. maybe go back to optional bumpers, like in 2006. it would coun't aginest your weight and size, but if you really wanted it, you would be able to protect your robot...

The poll seems to show one side is clearly the majority. EIGHT times as many people say bumpers help FRC as hurt, and nearly three times as many want them to return next year as want them gone.

[Mihai]

thread killer



bumpers = good
although our sides still need a bashing after every match, but we've come to expect our driver, Mr. Cox, to hit anything in range (including the track balls which he has popped multiple times )

Woo, Big post time!

Originally Posted by Bob Steele

I believe that most posters are missing an important aspect to bumpers.

They indicate the area of legal contact. If some robots have no bumpers and some do we have no real frame of reference as to where contact is made.

They make it easier for the referees to judge whether contact is made in a legal way rather than outside the bumper area....

Absolutely, I agree that this makes it easier. Oh wait, that would mean that refs would be calling more out of contact zone penalties, from arm to arm hits, and so on. But they haven't. Sure, it's a nice idea to think that it would make it easier, and conceptually, it does. However, I have yet to see enough out-of contact zone penalties for this to really make sense to me...

Originally Posted by Jeff Pahl

One thing I noticed last year when inspecting at the Championships was that the robots that didn't use bumpers tended to be more beat up and had a lot more trouble at inspection fitting in the sizing box due to things being bent. I hope that there will be less of that this year due to everyone having bumpers.

Hm. See, I've always seen two classes of bots that didn't have bumpers: We've got the ones who are broken and wished they used bumpers, or wished that their frame was more robust, and then you have the teams that designed a strong frame, and don't need bumpers either way. I've always made sure to design my frames to be strong enough to not need bumpers. The only year I had a chassis break was after the bot tipped, and was rammed repeatedly by another bot with no bumpers. Basically, I'm trying to say that not having bumpers teaches teams to design a stronger chassis, or reap the consequences.

Originally Posted by octothorpe

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.

I totally agree. Bumpers are nice and all, for some designs, but should not be required in any way. Honestly, you're taking a lot of really stylish designs, and covering them up. What ever happened to the "wow!" factor of a nicely crafted drive base? Now it seems all we have is box-bots that look the same, with the only difference being the color of the fabric on the bumpers.

I'm all for the free choice of teams to use or not use bumpers.

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

Last weekend in Florida I saw SPAM taking a shockingly hard hit right next to me from their alliance partner SigmaC@ts. The impact broke the bumper. The robot itself was undamaged. Considering the violent collisions going on out there to not want bumpers is to openly court insanity!

See, now I've been standing behind a barrier that was hit by team 254 at high speed last year. They didn't have bumpers. The collision knocked the alliance station back a good foot, and shut down the entire side of the field. Their robot: fine, and in good operational ability. What this comes down to is intelligent design: make it strong or break it. FIRST shouldn't have to enforce teams into a weak state.

Originally Posted by Nawaid Ladak

my honest opinion: putting bumpers on robots is like buying a poor mans warranty for that robot. Building a durable, strong and consistent robot is a true warranty in itself.

Yes! I agree totally! If your bot can't handle impact, and can't handle the heavy defense and contact that FIRST requires, you'll have a broken chassis. On hand, this sucks for a team, as it can often mean the end of a regional. However, i've been that team that's stripped the bot down, taken it out to the welder, and had our chassis repaired before the finals, and STILL brought it to the other alliance, when our bot was practically in half an hour before. It may suck for many, but even more will learn a VERY valuable lesson in structural integrity: Design strong or deal with a broken bot.

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

The poll seems to show one side is clearly the majority. EIGHT times as many people say bumpers help FRC as hurt, and nearly three times as many want them to return next year as want them gone.

Aye, that it does. However, I voted oddly: I voted that bumpers are helping. I said this because we aren't seeing as many crippled robots this year. At the same time, I also voted that bumpers should be optional. I think the team should have the choice whether or not to build a large (and fairly ugly) construction that doesn't always lend a useful capacity to the bot. There are always cases where bumpers are necessary, and most of them involve a poorly designed frame.

[note: that was a lot for me to track. I may have missed something/misphrased something. Feel free to ask for clarification on my views if I mangled something and didn't notice on my edit...]

[thefro526]

I think bumpers are great. They have saved out bots in 06 and 08. In 07 we chose not to use bumpers because our decorations protected out frame. This year though i think bumpers help alot. Our robot is much more stable with the bumper than with out.

IMO Bumpers = Win!

[Josh Murphy]

Although they are a pain, I am game on the mandatory bumpers. They provide protection to the robot and help keep damage down. The only downside is being confined to the "standard" rules. I wish we could mount them however we want. The other thing that gets me is that I see bumpers that other teams have(not standard or have a different fastening system other than what is allowed) and I wonder how they pass inspection. I had to read these rules a couple of times to make sure they were constructed correctly and mounted to the robot correctly. Figuring out how to Mount them was one of the biggest headaches for me. I got over it and I love the bumper system

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by CraigHickman

Absolutely, I agree that this makes it easier. Oh wait, that would mean that refs would be calling more out of contact zone penalties, from arm to arm hits, and so on. But they haven't. Sure, it's a nice idea to think that it would make it easier, and conceptually, it does. However, I have yet to see enough out-of contact zone penalties for this to really make sense to me...

Interesting, I've seen a number of these, especially in 2007. I've seen a handful get missed, but that's the case with any rule (let's not get into the ref debate here as well).

Originally Posted by CraigHickman

Hm. See, I've always seen two classes of bots that didn't have bumpers: We've got the ones who are broken and wished they used bumpers, or wished that their frame was more robust, and then you have the teams that designed a strong frame, and don't need bumpers either way. I've always made sure to design my frames to be strong enough to not need bumpers. The only year I had a chassis break was after the bot tipped, and was rammed repeatedly by another bot with no bumpers. Basically, I'm trying to say that not having bumpers teaches teams to design a stronger chassis, or reap the consequences.

The wonderful thing about mandating bumpers is that these strong framed bots won't snap the weaker framed bots in half. I've seen extrusion, box channel, c-channel, kitbot, and virtually every frame type suffer damage at one point. I've also seen various robot components (mainly manipulators) "impale" frames and drive components not shielded by bumpers.

Originally Posted by CraigHickman

I totally agree. Bumpers are nice and all, for some designs, but should not be required in any way. Honestly, you're taking a lot of really stylish designs, and covering them up. What ever happened to the "wow!" factor of a nicely crafted drive base? Now it seems all we have is box-bots that look the same, with the only difference being the color of the fabric on the bumpers.

Really? I think someone forgot to tell 1986, 179, 1098, and 148.

Originally Posted by Nawaid Ladak

your forgetting that there are MANY people who do not bother looking at chiefdelphi... from what i know, it's because of what katy has stated in her other thread that she published last week.http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=65668

taht count is sort of crippled, i know teams that don't even have accounts, or if they do, the next to NEVER check them or log on to CD.

I think if you were to do a poll in the pits at championship you would get more even numbers...

If you are willing to put together a poll at Championship, I'd be very eager to see the results. If anything, given the high-profile teams on CD, I'd think that the teams not on it would actually fall more into the category of teams that use bumpers to protect their often lower-budget frames.

[Viper37]

Bumpers used to drive me crazy as a driver. They made the robot wider then it needed to be, and got caught up on the slightest obstructions. With a well designed and constructed frame, damage should not even be an issue. With the GM Ind Design Award for example, robustness was something they were looking for. We won it last year, using bumpers only once we were in Atlanta.


Just me 2 cents.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by CraigHickman

Oh wait, that would mean that refs would be calling more out of contact zone penalties, from arm to arm hits, and so on. But they haven't.

Did you forget <G37>e?

e. Extension to extension contact between two ROBOTS with appendages outside the
ROBOT perimeter of the STANDARD BUMPERS will generally not be penalized.

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

Did you forget <G37>e?

Nope, didn't forget that. Most of the penalties (or lack thereof) that I was referring to are ones where the appendage contact is inside the bumper zone for one team. This is absolutely illegal, and can take a team out of the running for a match (ex: team 8 and team 254. I'm sure there have been many others all over, but that one sticks out in my head).

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by CraigHickman

Nope, didn't forget that. Most of the penalties (or lack thereof) that I was referring to are ones where the appendage contact is inside the bumper zone for one team. This is absolutely illegal, and can take a team out of the running for a match (ex: team 8 and team 254. I'm sure there have been many others all over, but that one sticks out in my head).

I can't speak for what may have happened at SVR, but at Detroit several G37 penalties were called - probably the third-most called, after G22 and G42.

[Guy Davidson]

Originally Posted by CraigHickman

Nope, didn't forget that. Most of the penalties (or lack thereof) that I was referring to are ones where the appendage contact is inside the bumper zone for one team. This is absolutely illegal, and can take a team out of the running for a match (ex: team 8 and team 254. I'm sure there have been many others all over, but that one sticks out in my head).

The way the referees were calling it in SVR is that they were only calling intentional (what in their mind was not incidental) contact outside the bumper zone a penalty. While we made some outside the bumper zone contact in the finals, similar contact was made against us earlier in the elimination, and went uncalled.

We made a mistake in not tying our arm back until we deployed it in the finals. Even with the stop we had, the arm had a tendency to flip slightly forward, and extrude outside our frame. In the future, when we're playing defense, we will either tie it back with a something that will snap when we want to deploy it, or just deploy it immediately in the beginning of the match.

[Nawaid Ladak]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

The poll seems to show one side is clearly the majority. EIGHT times as many people say bumpers help FRC as hurt, and nearly three times as many want them to return next year as want them gone.

your forgetting that there are MANY people who do not bother looking at chiefdelphi... from what i know, it's because of what katy has stated in her other thread that she published last week.http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=65668

taht count is sort of crippled, i know teams that don't even have accounts, or if they do, the next to NEVER check them or log on to CD.

I think if you were to do a poll in the pits at championship you would get more even numbers...

[Katy]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

The poll seems to show one side is clearly the majority. EIGHT times as many people say bumpers help FRC as hurt, and nearly three times as many want them to return next year as want them gone.

Yes. I actually realize now I constructed that poll pretty poorly. You have my apologies. This is because I don't want them to be outlawed, I just don't feel that mandatory bumpers are helping. What I meant to really ask "are mandatory bumpers assisting the league" and "do you want bumpers to be mandatory next year." If you look at the written responses the difference is actually a pretty big deal. If you do actually take your proposed poll at the championship please consider modifying the questions in that manner.

In other news: let's take it easy with the calling other people un-GP! That's a pretty strong word. You may be right or you may be wrong but I'm going to ask we avoid this entire branch of discussion because reading flame-wars is boring!

So here is my next question to individuals in this thread. You have explained quite effectively why you believe bumpers should be permitted. I agree with you as it was never my intent to say that bumpers should be outlawed. (I'll admit my opening post may be misleading on this but honestly I was just using shorthand when it was in reality rather inappropriate and glossing over an important distinction. My issue is mainly with the fact that bumpers are mandatory and additional weight and size are alloted for them.) Now, other than to define contact zone, which has been pretty widely disputed, why should bumpers be mandatory? Why does FIRST requiring them improve the league?

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Katy

Yes. I actually realize now I constructed that poll pretty poorly. You have my apologies. This is because I don't want them to be outlawed, I just don't feel that mandatory bumpers are helping. What I meant to really ask "are mandatory bumpers assisting the league" and "do you want bumpers to be mandatory next year." If you look at the written responses the difference is actually a pretty big deal. If you do actually take your proposed poll at the championship please consider modifying the questions in that manner.

I agree that the written responses differ a great deal, but more people tend to talk about something they want fixed than something that works well (look at the news, typically negative regardless of the situation). While I don't want to get into that debate here, the current poll shows a very definite bias towards bumpers helping FIRST.
As for the Championship poll, that was actually Nawaid's idea. I'll more than likely be sitting at home during CMP.

Originally Posted by Katy

So here is my next question to individuals in this thread. You have explained quite effectively why you believe bumpers should be permitted. I agree with you as it was never my intent to say that bumpers should be outlawed. (I'll admit my opening post may be misleading on this but honestly I was just using shorthand when it was in reality rather inappropriate and glossing over an important distinction. My issue is mainly with the fact that bumpers are mandatory and additional weight and size are alloted for them.) Now, other than to define contact zone, which has been pretty widely disputed, why should bumpers be mandatory? Why does FIRST requiring them improve the league?

It prevents robots from harming other robots and field objects. Regardless of the claims of more aggressive driving, which are disputable at best seeing as there's no real way to empirically support either side of that argument, bumpers do shield both robots and field elements from damage. Any perceived increase in aggressive driving more than likely stems from the game being played, or more specifically, the high speed robots designed for this game. Even if the other robot does have bumpers, if yours doesn't you transfer a greater impulse to the other robot. People have already testified to damage being done when both robots have bumpers, this damage will increase as bumpers decrease. I'd like to see robot damage decrease in general, regardless of whether or not "rookie teams should know better". Nobody likes to see an event where half the teams are broken.