The 2003 game (Stack Attack) had four robots start the game by simulatenously charging up a ramp, trying to be first to hit a wall of bins and knock/plow as many as possible into their own scoring zones. The frequent result was high-speed collisions, mitigated (i.e., damped) in most cases by bins interposed between the colliding robots. Bumpers were not required back then so most robots didn't have them. Fortunately, many robots also lacked sufficiently powerful drivetrains to develop significant kinetic energy at the moment of impact; however, in a few cases the crashes were spectacular.
Lunacy will provide much more frequent crash opportunities. Bumpers designed to mitigate the effects of those crashes are not just a good idea, they are the law.
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Richard Wallace
Mentor since 2011 for FRC 3620 Average Joes (St. Joseph, Michigan)
Mentor 2002-10 for FRC 931 Perpetual Chaos (St. Louis, Missouri)
since 2003
I believe in intuition and inspiration. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.
(Cosmic Religion : With Other Opinions and Aphorisms (1931) by Albert Einstein, p. 97)