New problem for our team. We are using 119.5” of frame perimeter. For the first time in six years, we want to go with a bumper all the way around the robot. We’ve built it with just the minimum - plywood, sheet metal corners, fabric, and noodles. The bumpers weigh 8.5 pounds each. From our understanding, 7.5 is max.
We are not adding weight anywhere for any reason. We’ve never even been close to the weight limit before. I would have thought the rules would allow for a bumper all the way around a robot using a legal frame perimeter.
Thank you all! I guess we misunderstood. So as I now understand it, a “set” of bumpers is whatever bumpers that are used during one match. That “set” cannot be more than 15 pounds.
So for us, we normally make one blue and one red bumper. So each one can weigh up to fifteen pounds.
I like this wording, (Color implies reversible bumpers can be 30lbs).
The OP’s interpretation isn’t a BAD interpretation. Set could easily mean “the collection of the two bumpers” as it could “the collection of things building one bumper system to be used within any given match.”
Is it easy to tweak R407 to get rid of the parenthesis and say something more to the effect of:
Each set of BUMPERS must weigh no more than 15 lbs (~6 kg). A set of bumpers refers to the complete BUMPERS that will be used during any specific match and includes any fasteners and/or structures that attach them to the ROBOT.
Splitting it into the two sentences keeps the inclusion of the hardware while also specifically stating which way to interpret “set” so that it’s not potentially confusing. Wordsmiths likely can make it even cleaner than my suggestion =)
I have seen recommendations that teams ask students or teachers in the English Department review their Chairman’s essays before submitting them. It would be good for FIRST HQ to do something similar. If someone in the U.S. where it appears that English is their native language is getting confused, then people for whom English is not their native language, in the U.S. or in other countries, are sure to get confused. As FIRST continues to expand outside the U.S., this will become more of a problem. I recall at a previous job hearing about some of the local service techs in South America who had to read our product manuals with a dictionary in hand, sometimes translating almost every word. We made a big effort to clean up our manuals to use simpler language and eliminate all “colloquial language” because of the difficulty translating it.
You really, really, really don’t want to mention “bumper inspections” and “CVR” in the same sentence anywhere near 1197. Not after 2018. Wasn’t this specific rule, though.
Short version: Inspector made us rebuild legal and good bumpers, resulting in us having questionably-legal and crappy bumpers for that event and the next one.
