It seems like they are almost ruling velcro on bumpers illegal and hence reversible bumpers?
An argument could be that you design your velcro so it’s not visible, but now we’re stuck with defining visible!
What are other peoples interpretations?
They don’t want visible velcro because it can interfere with another bot’s bumpers if they stick to it (or the carpet could, I don’t know). If it’s hidden behind the bumper and used for reversing, I don’t see any issues popping up.
Teams have been using those for years, and this year’s manual does not seem to word the rules there significantly differently.
Wow. If this is actually true, then this is a major setback. If this stands, even the RoboPromo reversible bumpers would be considered illegal, which is going to come and bite a lot of teams come competition.
Just don’t use velcro…
https://youtu.be/XYTiRxLw7oA
First, I assume the rule they’re referring to is actually R21-D, because R27 doesn’t have a part D (or parts, for that matter).
That being said, I don’t think that it necessarily puts us “stuck defining visible.” What they seem concerned with is the faces of the bumper and where robots will be making contact.
Well we are still making reversible bumpers. If we get to our event and they call it illegal we will have little patches to put over the velcro but, I do not want to have to do that.
I recommend Someone with access posts a follow-up question, asking them to define regions where Velcro would not be “visible” and thus legal on bumpers. In the “hard parts” section? Behind the plywood backing?
The wording of the original question makes it sound like the Velcro would be on the front face of the bumper, which I would expect the GDC to say is illegal.
Another way to do it would be to have both colors removable, then all of the velcro would be covered during competition.
I have some backstory on this question and it’s really VERY upsetting and a counter example of the idea of gracious professionalism as a whole.
Let’s not use Q&A as a weapon guys.
Now, as a counter to this point, if the hook and loop is confined to areas that would be…
A) Fully contained within the area of the bumper where “hard parts” are allowed as shown in figure 4-7 below R21-G.
and
B) Could be covered with the aluminum angle specifically permitted within R21-E
Also, per R21-D there are accommodations within the rules specifically to allow reversible bumpers.
Personally, I’m ignoring this for now as I agree that it mostly concerns areas where interface occurs between robots in the course of a match. We’ve done reversible bumpers since 2010 (except for last year of course).
Wow, I really hope they clarify this one. But this is another case of “They way we’ve always done it” (by multiple teams) not making it right. As an inspector, this is an item to add to the checklist that is not always a quick fix on practice day.
Give the GDC until Friday and it’ll be fixed. At this point, asinine Q&A rulings that don’t even begin to grasp the consequence of such a clarification are the norm, as is the usual CD response to them. Thankfully, the swift corrective action by a Team Update is also the norm. If there’s nothing in the Friday Team Update about this, then get out the pitchforks…
Q&A’d in my somewhat confrontational, “are you sure that’s a good idea?” style: Q798
To be clear, Q&A’d since there’s no guarantee that the GDC will notice/care about a small, pitchfork-less CD thread.
I’m glad the follow up question is posted. I do see a reading of the rules that has external velcro even in the hard parts area being struck down. Imagine the can of worms it would open when people want to add other parts to the hard parts area for an advantage. This will be a tricky one.
For 2014 I made our team made “reversible” bumpers. They weren’t reversible in the sense of them being attached but more the blue one gets placed atop the red layer, and can be peeled off.
I had used a staple gun and attached duralock to the plywood on the top, bottom and sides of the bumper where it wasn’t touching the chassis.
Attaching them to the blue side was a little more challenging, basically i used the staple gun again while having metal on the underside the the fabric, this caused the staples to go through the duralock and fabric then bend, afterwords i used a hammer to push down any staple backs that were sticking out, and made sure no one can get caught on the staples.
The design worked well, the only problem I could think of is duralock takes more force to peel apart.
According to the Q&A, velcro on the hard parts IS LEGAL!
Game Manual - Robot » Bumper Rules
Q798 Q. Followup to Q785: Many teams have been assuming bumper construction was similar to the past 5 years when hook and loop was allowable to make reversible bumpers. It seemed reasonable enough that RoboPromo is supplying COTS reversible that are illegal per Q785. Would hook and loop in the “hard parts” portion of the bumper be acceptable? If not, there may be a lot of teams that don’t notice an obscure Week 5 Q&A and show up with illegal bumpers and no good way to fix them.
Follow FRC0057 on 2016-02-10 | 3 Followers
A. Yes, hook and loop on hard parts of the BUMPER are permitted. R21-D and R27 will be edited in Team Update 10 to accommodate this. Thank you for your question.
Published by GDC
While this was expected, it still makes me happy 
Sweet. That makes two team updates I’ve made it into this year.
You’re not kidding. Me too.
Also, thank you @Kevin.
This is not necessarily a good thing. Ask Raul about some Wildstang strategies that were disallowed by Team Updates. 
Gary, Better to find out about disallowed strategies through team updates than through failing inspection, fouls, technical fouls, yellow cards, and red cards!