Bumpers here to stay?

[raiofsunshine]

As much as I hated the idea of bummpers in the begining, they where useful to the game, since there was so much defence that was needed. (Personally, I didn't see a ton of ramming.) I think they will stay on for next year - regardless of the whole underwater thing.

[xzvrw2]

Because my team turned out to be one of those teams that could score 20 balls (inconsistantly bhut nevertheless we did) we seen alot more ramming then the teams that can only score 10 the whole match.
Teams like:
217
1114
469
70
79
121
All smashed because they were good. They seen alot of high speed hits. I think that because of the bumpers teams rammed. thats fine, just if its too hard the refs need to call it. and thats one thing i did not see at all, a rammin flag. alot of teams broke that rule, no flags were thrown. Ithink that the refs need to call them.

[Pavan Dave]

I think they saves A LOT of robots and that it was a great idea, i just done like the ramming rules...

Pavan

[Dan Petrovic]

Bumpers kept us from tipping... multiple times. I like the idea of bumpers.

I just don't like the strict rules defining which noodles you MUST use and which material you MUST use and all that.

[spears312]

I definitely see the bumpers coming back next year. They really helped prevent frame damage for frames. It's also nice to have the weight advantage. With them though, there aren't as many head on metal to metal collisions as there used to be, and they may start giving reason to weaken the frame. Overall they are pretty good add on and provide for some interesting new strategy.

[sciencenerd]

I believe that whether bumpers come back another year or not depends on how much contact has been designed into the game next year. I think the main reason the GDC allowed them this year was because they were able to see that there would be a lot of robot collisions one way or another (compared, for example to last year) and knew something had to be done to minimize damage. If next year's game is anywhere close to as big on defense, the bumpers will probably be back. If not, I doubt they will be kept.

[Jonathan Norris]

I believe that bumpers are here to stay, they provided much needed protection in this years game. Without bumpers I believe that this years game would have played very differently if bumpers were not widely used and the wedge rule had not been put in place. The defense would have been overwhelming otherwise. If defense is a key part of the game bumpers are needed.

The only downside I can see to the implementation of bumpers is how it hurts creativity in the design of a robot. Over the years one of the most innovative parts of the robots has been the many amazing defense and protection innovations by teams. This year the bumpers and mainly the wedge rule eliminated that part the creativity of robot designs. I hope to see the reinstatement of wedges and defensive components in the future. Some of the best matches I have ever seen happen between a defensive and offensive powerhouse.

[=Martin=Taylor=]

I think it really depends on the game.

I personally found the bumpers a little bit of a nuisance when it came to getting up the ramp and collecting balls. If next year's game requires climbing something steep I don't see them as an advantage.

I don't think they really protected our robot that much, seeing how we only had them on the sides and we only got hit on the front and back. Which oddly wound up being the only parts of the frame that didn't get bent...

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by InfernoX14

I just don't like the strict rules defining which noodles you MUST use

The only strict rule was on the diameter of the noodle, which makes obvious sense.

and which material you MUST use and all that.

Cordura was the recommended fabric - you could use anything similar. And even if Cordura was made the sole fabric allowed, it's not that expensive and is readily available online - presuming you're planning ahead, and not making your bumpers just before ship.

[JackN]

I could see bumpers staying on as a part of FIRST, but if FIRST gets rid of the wedge rule, I could see them disapering again.

[Aaron D.]

well I hope that FIRST allows bumpers to stay, they really are helpful and I sure hope the wedge rule stays had that been in effect in 2003 houston might have been a different story for us on einstein

[BBnum3]

This is for all those who read my earlier post and had any thoughts or comments on my team's bumper design.

Please don't worry. We didn't cheat. It was because of my lousy writing that I gave that impression.

I completely understand the outrage felt by many at my misrepresentation of the facts. If I read that post I would have thought that a team was proud of cheating and would've felt the same way. The way I clumsily wrote, it sounded like I said that we deliberately broke a rule in order to gain an advantage for our robot. We didn't. I want to relay the whole story of how my team arrived at our bumper design, because I feel that it is necessary that I clear up this whole issue.

Here's the story:

One of our mentors decided to cut the bumpers with a cut that ended up not being perfectly vertical. With the Cordura fabric wrapping the cut, the bumpers looked vertical to all of us, and apparently the inspectors thought so, too. There was no intentional deception. Our robot passed inspection with those cuts on the bumpers. I thought that if our robot passed inspection with those bumpers that they could not possibly be illegal. After this my team pretty much forgot any issue with our bumpers. At the Championship event our team again passed inspection with the same bumpers. The topic of bumpers never once came up at the Championship, no mention (as far as i know) by any inspectors or any other teams.

I'm not that great of a writer. I was trying to go too fast in my original post, and disgraced myself and my team. When I said we knew and had read the rule I was wrong. The whole issue with cheating is entirely due to my poor wording, and not to anything my teammates did. I feel really bad about this whole thing, and hope that I can learn from this experience, because, plain and simple, I did something stupid.

[team222badbrad]

222 has gone without bumpers Oh, since we started in 1997 and we have not needed them yet so why start using them now?

We have gone to over 45 competitions over the years and have been in many rough matches; beat on us, ram us, push us, tip us over we don't care.

If any rule should apply to building a robot frame it would be KISS.

I have seen many complex or weak frames get bent and every year we have built box frames from various sizes aluminum angle because we know it works!

This year I also saw many teams with bumpers get caught up on the field, especially the ramp.

In the future we will most likely not use bumpers unless forced or we see a good reason to use them, for example if we needed to increase our weight.