I forget what year it was rookies were deemed incapable of making a robot with any level of ability.
And having a rougher interaction helps teach not only robust construction, but designing for ease of maintenance and replacement.
I also don’t have much of a problem with bumper rules. On the other hand, I had the “pleasure” of being knocked out of eliminations in 2007 and 2008 as a result of those flags, so I’m glad to see that they are gone. :o
While it was nice to be able to identify alliances with the bumpers, I think it did mess with the team identities a bit. Then again, this game lent itself to boxy, short robots. I think with a game with taller robots (e.g. 2009 or 2006) teams would have lots of space to display their usual colors/logo/etc, and the lack of personalized bumpers would be less noticeable.
What if, in conjunction to Billfred’s idea we make it so each corner of the bumper has to be a certain color. If we make it so that each side has to have 3"-4" of alliance coloring then it would be a solid 6"-8" on each corner. More than enough to denote who is on which alliance. Then the middle would be free to be decorated as teams saw fit.
Or (assuming that most robots are a 4 sided polygon…148 from 2008 and 1501 from 2010 would be an exception not the rule) we have opposing sides be colored for alliances, with the other two allowed for team decoration.
If I was in charge of the bumper rules:
Section 8.Y BUMPERS.
<RXX> Bumpers are at the team’s discretion. Only standard bumpers, as defined in <RXY>, are exempt from size/weight requirements for the entire robot. NOTE: While bumpers are not required, they are highly recommended. Teams that choose not to use bumpers may find their robots taking a lot of structural damage.
<RXY> Standard design is defined as:
a) 2 vertically stacked 2.5" pool noodles, or [reasonable substitute that is 5" high],
b) 3/4" thick by 5" high plywood backing for the noodles,
c) Cover made of tough, smooth fabric that covers the noodles and the top and bottom of the plywood backing.
d) Optional: angled aluminum may be used to help secure the bumper covers.
All components must be assembled as shown in Figure 8-Z.
<RCD> All bumper segments used must be at least 6" in length. A section of bumper is not a segment unless it has all of the required components.
<RXZ> Standard bumpers must be entirely within the BUMPER ZONE and securely attached to the FRAME PERIMETER.
<RBA> Standard bumpers should be removable by one person in about 10 minutes.
<RZX> Non-standard bumpers are allowed, but must fit within normal robot size and weight requirements.
a) The outer material should be soft enough that a normal human could punch it and not suffer serious damage, but stiff enough that said normal human can not drive the material into the backing.
b) Should the bumpers have anything capable of motion inside them, the inspectors will notify the referees. Use of the bumpers to tip other robots will result in being reinspected after the motion is removed, in addition to any on-field penalty.
<RAB> Numbers/decorations/colors on bumpers. Should a team use bumpers, they are required to have their number, sized according to <Rnumberrule>, upon at least one segment, in a contrasting color to the rest of the bumper. Other than that, there are no restrictions on color.
Other rules referenced:
FRAME PERIMETER: The polygon defined by the outermost vertices of the robot in the bumper zone, not counting bolts. As an example, imagine putting a rubber band around your frame in the bumper zone–the band defines the perimeter. [note: bolt exclusion would extend up and down–no tolerance for outside the size box, but inside, tolerance up to the thickness of the plywood.]
<Rnumberrule> Numbers shall be X" high by Y" stroke, in a contrasting color to the background, spaced at about 90 degrees from each other. Numbers shall be visible against a black background from 300’. NOTE: This means that if your robot is in front of a black background, and you can’t see the numbers from 300’ away, you’re in violation of the rule.
[author note: 300’ has been the guideline for a number of years. Black on clear contrasts, but darned if I can see it from 300’ away on a dark background…]
Now, to solve the alliance ID issues:
KOP item: 4 color-changing LED strips.
<Rcolor> You must use all 4 provided LED strips, and the color must be visible from X feet away on all sides. Your base code will take care of changing the color. (Base code would include a call to find out the alliance and produce a red or a blue.)
Of course, I am not in charge of any rules, so this is just what I’d like to see.
i’ve been the bumper maker for the past 3 seasons on my team, not only do i miss the personalization aspect, but the 2 color thing is just a pain. I made the mistake of making the colors switchable by flipping the fabric, but it was a slow and unreliable process. It actually took me 3 days to sew it all too!!!
I could have easily done one of the “skirts”, but i foresaw ripping and snagging on other robots (which happened).
While its easy for me to find the materials in balmy California, my largest complaint is the color compliance (bring back the flags) and the frame perimeter. The first FIRST team that can send me a picture of legal bumpers with broken plywood because of another robot (again with standard bumpers) crashed into it will make me have a heart attack from suprise
Frankly, I liked switching bumper colors for the alliance. It tended to be a pain, it really helped on the field, and off the field to see who’s who. But similar bumpers (red & blue) tend to make all of the robots looks the same.
And I can just blame that on this year’s game. I think that no matter if in '09, every team was using the same bumpers, each robot would definitely have looked different.
Regardless of what the rules will be, I still found a little interesting when a team at P’tree asked the ref if they would provided a second set of bumpers. Needless to say, I could see them frantically trying to locate some more pool noodles.
- Sunny
Bumper zones signify contact zones. To me, it seems logical to force contact within the same zone on every robot so as to prevent teams from making contact zones as low as possible and thus tipping other robots.
There’s also some math Dave did a while back, and the result is that a ~10fps 150lb robot can exert 10,000 psi of force onto an external object if the contact area is small enough. Thus, in the interest of keeping the fields and field components in tip top shape, bumpers are very necessary.
So Aren, I do trust you to keep your own robot in good health. Yet that doesn’t mean your drivers will make decisions that are in the interest of all parties involved. (And by “your” I mean the overall FRC community of teams, not 1625.)
All I hope for moving forward is that we keep the bumpers. It keeps our robot prettier for the offseason.
I’d like to see FIRST go back to bumper quantity rules like 2008.
I believe in 2008 something like 75% of your robots perimeter had to be covered by bumpers. This was a good trade off between function and protection and some teams used it to their advantage
Also, I never want to see a 10"-16" bumper zone again, EVER. I understand that having bumpers that high was the only way to make bump crossing work, but the side effects of this were just too much. It seemed like every other match some random defender would be pushing a machine up on one side of their drive and holding them there which was far less likely to happen with the lower bumper zone of 2008 and 2009.
As far as “Mandatory” bumpers go, I’m torn on the subject. There’s part of me that doesn’t like anything to be Mandatory, but at the same time I feel that bumpers make robots look better in most cases.
One thing I’d love to see added to bumper rules is a specific and required supplier for bumper fabric. Most teams use fabrics from the same vendors, but occasionally you’ll see a machine with some random fabric that looks like crap and is clearly different that the standard fabric.
Red and Blue bumper colors were a cool idea, but I don’t want to see it happen again. For as long as I’ve been watching FRC competitions I’ve never had a problem figuring out which team was on which alliance, but I can see how this could be a problem. Personally, I’m a huge fan of the old school rotating light from 2002-ish for differentiating alliances. I’m sure someone could track down a similar and more modern replacement for this.
I’d like to see bumper decoration restrictions go back to their 2008 and 2009 standards. We decorated our bumpers in both 2008 and 2009 and I think they looked great and we got a lot of compliments on them. I don’t see why we shouldn’t be able to do this now.
I personally do not like that bumpers are mandatory, but that being said I’ll assume that they will continue to be and answer accordingly.
- I’d like to see the backing material rules relaxed. Allow people to use what they wish for the backing material and rigidly enforce bumpers staying in the bumper zone. Thus if the bumper breaks and droops then penalties will accrue.
I’d also like to see the ‘soft’ section materials include other options such as 2" memory foam.
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Mounting should be the option of the teams, but should be required to be robust. Again, if it fails then teams should be penalized and not allowed to return to the field until it is robust enough to withstand ‘vigorous’ robot-to-robot interaction.
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The rules for this year made most robots look alike, which is boring to the casual observer. While the alliance color is a good idea, I’d rather see 2 sets of LED string lights controlled by a spike signifying alliance color. I loved seeing the different bumper colors and the unique look some teams had prior to this year.
Again, if I had my way bumpers (and their additional weight) would be optional.
We’ve never had much problems with the bumpers in past years. We always used them, with the exception of 2007 when we took off the side bumpers to facilitate getting on ramp bots. While I’m not a particularity a big fan of bumpers, I do see that they save where and tear on robots, and especially the field elements. And I thought that the bumpers this year made the alliances readily identifiable, and that’s a good thing.
Our frames for the last 2 years have been held together with bolts, spacers and standoffs. the bolt caps extend about 3/16" outside the frame, but well within the box. Last year they where within the bumper zone and therefore allowed, since the bumper zone was low on the robot where the drive train was located. Inspectors where not real sticky on bolt heads behind the bumpers.
This year the bumper zone was 10" to 16" above ground level and therefore above the drive train area, so we had to add lexan spacers on our bot to cover those bolt caps, needlessly adding weight to a robot that already had weight issues. It’s these spacers that I really dislike.
When the bumpers start to dictate the design of robots, I start to have problems with them. Having a “zero tolerance” for bolt heads protruding outside of the bumper zone, even when they are well within the box seems petty and useless, a “lawyers” interpretation of the rules; and we have in the past been admonished tor “lawyering” the rules.
It is my hoe that next year the GDC relaxes these rules a little, thereby giving inspectors some leeway for bolt heads and other minor protrusions. A more sensible and common sense approach is indicated.
I rest my case:)
I don’t like bumpers and 1319 has only used them the years where they were mandatory. I agree with everything Tom has said above and could not have said it better. Instead I add an alternative to the alliance identification issue. Right now every robot has a required signal light that arguably evryone can see from the stands. You know when your robot is not moving look to see what the signal light is doing right? So why not have interchangeable robot signal lights that are either blue or red much like back in 2003 and before as manyy have already suggested. A link below shows a great possibility.
Note, I’m donning my firesuit now as I type this.
I’ve been thinking about this ALOT lately. I’m not a fan of bumpers, primarily because of the restrictive rules, but I do see the reason for them.
I do realize bumpers are all or nothing, either every robot has them, or they don’t. Making them optional will just result is robots without bumpers tearing up the bumpers on the ones that do.
Looking back at it, there is one major thing that has changed as the bumper rules have come about. The power of the motors included in the kit.
I believe 2005 was the first year of having 4 cims and we also had the big cims that year (I think). This was also one of the first years teams started building mega drive trains. Previous years had mostly used the bosch drill motors for drivetrains. As the power of the drivetrains increased do did the damage to robots. Now teams are building mega (up to 6) motor drive trains with shifting transmissions capable of doing massive damage to another bot or field element.
I’m not sure if it would be a major step backwards but what if FIRST restricted the motors in the kit, or amount of motors used in the drivetrain in order to lessen the damage that can be caused by a robot and thus remove the bumper rules? Not only would it loosen up the robot rules a bit, but it might help some of the KOP cost issues as well?
Just a suggestion, and I’m really not sure if it’s even something I support or not, just throwing it out there. Just to be clear, I am in favor or less rules, not more. 
I like the standard bumpers, with the standardized colors for alliance identification. The only change I personally would like to see is an allowance for gaps in the bumpers as we have seen in previous years (which I think only wasn’t allowed this year because it wasn’t particularly necessary given Overdrive’s other design limitations).
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
I don’t like bumpers. I miss the sound of 2 robots coming together at full speed. We have to spend too much time reading on how to build them and then building them. It is a week’s worth of work that could be actually used to teach useful stuff to the students.
I also don’t like having to modify the bumpers every time a different ref looks at them. We didn’t have to touch them our first event, but had to make major changes at our 2nd event and the Championship. The rules were constantly being reinterpreted throughout this year. Mostly because they were written poorly. The GDC does a great just with the rest of the rules but somehow seems to fall short on bumpers.
I loved the easy identification of alliances. I know members of my team spent large amounts of time fabricating our bumpers, and they did a superb job. Hopefully one of them will post pictures of the construction, and the mechanisms used to switch them out.
As far as robot identification, bumpers were a nice standardization. Other ways to identify robots such as lights or covers wouldn’t be as easy to standardize as bumpers are.
Including bumper materials in the kit and a mounting system for the kit bot may be a must in the future.
When this came up last year, here’s what I said:
I think that all continues to hold true.
Additionally, I would support the idea that bumpers be made optional again, as long as it’s clear that robots running without them would not draw more penalties against the opponent (despite being more likely to be damaged), and that they would have to identify themselves in an equivalent way (e.g. coloured, numbered placards in the bumper zone).
Mandatory bumpers do have one big advantage: they save teams that build the robot to the full 38 in × 28 in limits from huge trouble when the frame twists, or their tolerances are off. This can be obviated with a simple note in the rules: “Build your robot smaller than the maximum limits of size to account for manufacturing tolerances and distortion due to damage suffered during gameplay. As a rule of thumb, you should consider building the robot at least 1 in smaller than each limit.”
Things like supporting the entire backing of the bumper are not helpful. If a bumper breaks, who cares? It’s a bumper. Either fix it with some sort of gusset, or cut it and call it two bumpers. The rules should be written to permit a simple, effective resolution to a broken bumper, instead of imposing a basically-worthless constraint on everyone—which, due to the phrasing, affects teams even if there’s no reasonable chance that their bumpers will break. During inspections at three events, I saw two teams with essentially unsupported bumpers along two sides (including one at the Championship…). They were forced to add structure to support the backing of their bumpers—even though, in all likelihood, the bumper backing itself was much stronger than the structure. By contrast, I saw more than a dozen teams that had small gaps behind their bumpers which were technically illegal, but which posed no real problem from an engineering perspective. And yet, the rule is clear: they must support the entire length of each bumper with the robot’s structure or frame. So mounting points were adjusted, or bumpers shimmed. This wasted a lot of time, both for teams and inspectors. But basically: this constraint is useless, and even counterproductive—either get rid of it, or write in a clause that specifically allows inspectors to override it based on their engineering judgment.
Bumper colours were very helpful for identifying alliances, but quite the opposite for identifying teams. With the location of the bumpers this year, and the fact that many robots were low, it meant that a lot of robots were hard to identify from a distance or on the webcast videos. While in the past, unique bumpers were easy ways to identify robots, this year, everyone had to rely more closely upon the team numbers (which are quite invisible in many webcasts). I’d be quite happy to see the rules allow the bumpers to be any colour, except for an inset patch (at least 12 in long) corresponding to the alliance colour, and containing the team numbers in white.
Bumpers should be required to be removable in 20 s per bumper segment. No exceptions. This isn’t rocket science, but because the rules suggest threaded fasteners, teams tend to go with complicated arrangements that require the insertion of hand tools into tight spaces. Teams will rapidly discover the existence of various spring pins if forced to design bumpers to be removed quickly.
Finally, though it’s not technically part of the bumper rule, the frame perimeter rule was a significant annoyance. Hopefully there won’t be any reason to need this next year—but if it does come back, tighten the definition.
I agree.
We usually run the west coast drive, a system that is extremely minimal and elegant in construction. The fact that we had to do this in 2009 to fully support the bumpers is silly to me, we could’ve supported them at a few places and be done with it. That doubled the amount of welding and parts in our frame, along with adding a pound of useless weight and making the frame ugly.
It’s a little insulting for FIRST to say, hey, we don’t trust you to build a frame right, so here are bumpers. I can live with that, but when FIRST says we further don’t trust you enough to put bumpers on there without them breaking, so you MUST support them the entire length, that’s just ridiculous.
Do the bumpers need to be as thick as they are? What if we chopped down their outward extension?
I always liked the bumpers but thought it was rather clunky and needs some refinement. Not sure what else to say though.
I really liked the red/blue colors this year. It made telling alliances apart very easy, even moreso than last year when you might have a red trailer pulled by a blue robot. I understand the team image issues, but perhaps that can be addressed in another manner.
I didn’t like most of the removable bumper covers I saw - they looked shoddy. Add to that some very amateurish numbering methods. C’mon, let’s try to make these machines look like the high-tech and high-class robots that they (usually) are.
I agree that the rules are too complex, without getting to what the GDC really wants. When too many smart teams can misinterpret the rules and show up with defective bumpers, the rules aren’t written clearly enough.
I’m not sure why the frame perimeter cannot have concavities. As long as each section of the frame is at least 6" long and protected by an adequate bumper, why can’t there be a pocket?
As for the bolthead and rivet rule, don’t get me started … :mad:
My teams main issue with the bumper rules this year. Our design had two concavities, those such allowed the ball to roll under the robot without going the 3 inches under the robot. It was a genius idea on our part, and the refs at our first event thought it was awesome.
When we were asked to change the design, our main issue was, what advantage did we gain by doing this? We were never given an answer by the GDC or and Inspector, but we did comply and change the design in about two hours at the Troy District Event.