pic: Week Three 2009

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by joeweber

Would that not be an interior corner as apposed to an exterior corner? When the trailer is attached, that area becomes in inaccessible.

Those corners are clearly a part of your BUMPER PERIMETER. Accessible or not, by letter of the rule they should be protected by 6" bumpers on each side.

Originally Posted by dtengineering

While the GDC will not rule on a specific design in the Q&A forum so asking "is this robot legal" is not a valid Q&A question, something along the lines of "The robot corners adjacent to the the trailer hitch in figure 8-2 of the game manual appear to be inconsistant with the requirement that all corners of the robot be protected by bumpers. Is special consideration meant to be given to such corners?" If it is possible to make the argument that in this design the rear corners are incapable of being the first part of the robot to contact another robot or playing surface then it may be that this bumper configuration is consistant with the intent of the rule (albeit not the current wording) and that the wording will be modified.

I hope the GDC rules favourably on this for the team. I can see how they could honestly believe their design to be legal. It is clearly consistant with figure 8-2 and is likely consistant with the intent of the bumper rules that the first part of a robot to contact a wall or other robot shall be the bumper.

I never noticed this apparent contradiction in Figure 8 -2. They are using that figure to illustrate allowable methods of extending the noodles to protect the corners. Yet the corners adjacent to the trailer hitch are not protected with 6" on both sides.

Joe, I would ask the question as Jason has worded it, and quickly. It's especially important as you are registered for a Week 1 District event. You can't risk an unfavorable ruling once you get there. (For those outside Michigan, if ruled against by an inspector, 1322 would not have a Thursday practice day to fix it; they would only have a few hours of Friday morning practice time.) See you in TC.

[EricH]

You guys are referencing fig. 8-2. I don't have a problem with that, except that I have 2.

1) The GDC has repeatedly said that the pictures in the rules are there merely for reference.

2) The figure has the right corners, but it also has bumpers on both sides of the corners, except right at the trailer hitch.

I think the question should read something like, "During the design process, we came up with a solution that we believe meets the intent of the bumper rules, but we would like to clarify that it meets the letter of the rules. [picture if necessary] We have an angled end such that every angle is an exterior corner and meets the bumper perimeter requirements. However, with the mounting of the trailer hitch, we can no longer put a 6" section of bumper between the hitch and the nearest exterior corner of the robot. We have confirmed that the trailer impacts bumper to bumper before the tongue hits. We think we won't need bumpers, but would like to confirm. If this design is not legal, we will change our design as necessary."

I would imagine that the GDC would either say, "we cannot comment on specific designs" or "This design does not meet <R08-X> and will not be legal."