My team is getting close to completing our robot (I know we are moving slow) as we are putting our finishing touches on the intake mechanism, I started having questions about the design we chose.
We agreed to leave one side open so the ball will not have to climb over the side or bumpers. Also, we decided that this would eliminate the need to have a moving arm as to move the intake into place out over the bumpers. We are all first years so the fewer moving parts, the better for us.
I read the rules and it seems to me that this is legal. I have attached a diagram of what our design looks like as well as the rule section pertaining to the frame perimeter.
Finally, my question is: From the diagram below, would our frame perimeter be the first or the second? The red outline represents the frame perimeter.
Frame Perimeter 1
Basically pull a string around your robot and that’s the frame perimeter.
Thank you. That’s what I interpreted too. Therefore, if our intake wheels are contained within that frame perimeter, we should be good to compete?
“Pull it taut” is the key there from the blue box to help understand. If you pulled it taut in example 2, there’s no way to keep the string inside the intake.
In practice, I’d expect to see the RIs use a measuring tape to wrap around the outer edge and get that number.
Yep, just start your intake wheels within that line.
Also important to note that Bumpers must cover 6 inches from the corners of the FRAME PERIMETER. There must be at least 12 inches of bumper on a side before it is long enough to have a gap. (For example, a 13 inch side can only have a 1 inch gap, a 20 inch side can have an 8 inch gap.)
Also pay attention to R410. Since the ends of bumpers need to be supported, there basically needs to be a minimum of 6 inches of frame on either side of a gap. (This could be as simple as a small bracket that supports the last half inch of the bumper, but there has to be something)
My team has another question. If we were to modify our frame to the picture below, would that be FRC legal? I only ask because we haven’t seen many teams do this, but I can’t find in the rules that we couldn’t. Just double checking.
The trouble with this is the requirement for a 6" bumper on the Frame Perimeter from the corner.
e.g.,
Thanks Mark, I did not think about the concept of the frame perimeter.
To be clear, this is definitely not legal as you do not have the required 6" of bumper on the corner. Even putting a bumper there would not constitute a BUMPER in the rules.
The “NOT OK” corner below is functionally the same as what you are trying to do.
Thank you Paul. It seemed to good to be true, which is why I brought it here to check. I completely forgot about the frame perimeter.
I suspect you are wanting the Modified Frame shape for a particular reason. Since it would not be legal to have bumpers with that shape, maybe you can think of some other simple way to accomplish the same thing with legal bumpers.
Do the ends of the bumpers have to be squared off (see image below) or can I sort of taper the pool noodles down to create a sort of funnel shape?
Squared. Once you taper, that section is no longer Bumper. This runs you into multiple problems.
Squared - See Figure 9-7 - as a general bumper cross section, it’s expected that any cross section of the bumper meets that image. As soon as you add a taper like in your image, the cross section within that taper significantly changes, and it no longer becomes a bumper.
for your specific question, I think R408 C covers it in technical jargon 
That’s what I suspected. Thanks.
What function are you wanting to have? Does it have to be your bumpers to perform the function you want? When do you need to perform that function?
People have adequately answered the rules question here, but an important reason was left off. Your bumpers will serve as a ramp if you taper the bottoms and you will be more likely to jump another bots bumpers and get inside their frame perimeter and draw a yellow or red card.
I don’t think they meant taper it at the bottom, but to taper it at the sides to act as a funnel for game pieces.
Point still stands though.
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