pic: Broken Bumper from 2007

[dtengineering]

I take it, however, that the bumpers worked, and the robot survived?

It looks like classic 3 (or four) point beam bending, however, so if these bumpers were made of 1/2" plywood, a 3/4" plywood bumper would have been over twice as resistant to bending/breaking... and if they were made our of just 3/8", then the regulation bumper would have been four times as stiff.

Even then, had these been supported in the middle, they would have likely survived fine... but I guess that is the point, isn't it? Build them like the rule book says and you won't have a problem!

From another perspective, it was quite disappointing for me as a tech inspector in Atlanta last year to have to fail teams on tech for not having followed the bumper rules. (Of course the inspection team helped them source FRC legal bumper materials, or devise suitable repairs, but it wasn't a particularly productive way for teams to spend their time.) It wasn't that I wanted to do it... but the job of the inspector is to enforce the rules, not to bend them, modify them, or make them up on the spot.

Jason