The only rule you could be breaking is that the team number must be unambiguous. However, the only reason we know that normal team numbers are in decimal is because that’s the convention. If you see a bunch of ones and zeroes on a bumper, it’s pretty obvious that it’s in binary (the same way it’s pretty obvious that normal team numbers are in decimal.)
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I think you might run into some issues with “must be easily discernable”, since most people are not used to comparing or converting team numbers in binary
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There is a team that has been doing this for 26 seasons now, so I would presume that it’s legal.
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Team number could arguably include a specific base as well. Otherwise any number is technically ambiguous which would make it impossible for any team to be in compliance with this rule. Given we have to assume that FIRST wants a non-zero number of robots to pass inspection, there has to be a way to write team number unambiguously with only arabic numerals. Given we can’t communicate base with only arabic numerals there has to be a standard base used. While it could technically be standardized as binary, given all (I think) other numbers in the manual are base 10, that is the implied standard.
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Yep. (:
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I always thought they used Hexadecimal. My mistake.
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Alternatively, you could just put 10 on your bumpers, and everyone’s bumpers, and declare that you’re using base (your team number).
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We’d need 12 bits, Seven zeros and five ones. That would be a tight fit using rules-compliant numeral sizes.
There are 13 and 14 bit team numbers now, and 15 bit team numbers coming in a few seasons. Binary numbers on bumpers won’t fit for many teams.
Also, think of the poor GAs.
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Really, they did it for about a decade before bumper numbers were required?
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When were team numbers on robots introduced? They definitely existed pre-bumpers so I’m guessing that’s what they’re referring to. Unfortunately I don’t know when those started to validate the number of years.
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Yeah but OP says writing on bumpers not flags (or whatever those were called)
Some teams displayed their numbers on signs all the way back in the 1992. I’m not sure when it was first required as mandatory though.
Teams also had Sponsor signage where they could put numbers as well.
All of that is pre bumpers so teams would put numbers anywhere
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That’s a 2002 picture…
I know I’ve seen number signs with alliance color backgrounds clear back to 1999, pictures with robot numbers back at least to 1997. Can’t speak before then for what I remember seeing.
That’s Tower Power isn’t it? Which was 1994, not 92. Or did the tower get reused later in the 2000s? The image came from Google under the description first robotics competition 1992 so maybe I’m getting confused or the source is label incorrectly.
The second picture looks like Hexagon Havoc, 1996. The first is DEFINITELY Zone Zeal, 2002… the Beatty BEAST starring.
Neither is 1992. No corn on the field.
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Ahh good point. Definitely don’t trust the label then. But is hexagon havoc and Tower Power the same tower? Or just very similar?
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Not 100% sure, might be same or very similar. Check the archived game descriptions maybe?
Robots? Binary? What could go wrong?
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Teams have pretty much always had to make their robots identifiable in one way or another, but the earliest reference I can find to displaying team numbers is from 1997. The size would be increased to 5" the next year, and as far as I can tell, this was the rule until until bumpers with numbers came around.
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