Bumper bracket and weight considerations

[dtengineering]

While I have forgotten some of the minuitae of the rules, and didn't find the confirmation to this even after following Richard's very helpful links to the Q&A (I didn't exactly knock myself out doing it.. the season IS over, after all), I believe that the mounting brackets would not only have to be weighed with the robot, but also sized with the robot, as they are not, technically, part of the bumper.

On the issue of building and inspecting robots to meet the bumper specifications... the rules were pretty clear. If you just followed the rules, you wouldn't have any problems. This does require reading the rules, following the Q&A, and recognizing that no matter how brilliant your particular design is, that it is not brilliant in an FRC competition context if it is not FRC legal.

It is disappointing, but not surprising... especially for teams that followed the rules very carefully... to see other teams pass inspection with bumpers that fall outside the specs. This obviously happened at regionals, because when I was doing tech inspection on Galileo, our team of inspectors found several bumpers that did not meet FRC rules. The most common violation was that the plywood had holes in it other than those used for fasteners, but I also came across a team using 5/8" MDF instead of plywood. There were, quite possibly, one or two that slipped past us in Atlanta, too, but we tried... really, really tried... to make sure that every robot was competing on a level, FRC-legal footing by Friday morning.

And I have to add, just for Cory, who felt that their time spent making their bumpers legal was wasted, that it most definitely was not. I remember looking at their robot (it is a beautiful machine) and had I noticed bumper configuration that was not "spec", they would have been having a conversation with the lead tech inspector over what they would have to do to make it legal.

Most tech inspectors are or have been builders, coaches and/or mentors, too. The only thing more painful than seeing a robot not pass tech on a "technicality" that "doesn't affect performance", (please don't even try that argument with a tech inspector... they don't make the rules!) is missing the violation and ignoring the hard work that all the other teams did to comply with the rules.

Just a few thoughts...

Jason

P.S. Ever tried finding pool noodles in Canada in winter? Now we stock up in the fall.