Are the mandatory bumpers helping or hurting?

[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.