Should Bumper rules change?

[JeremyS]

Andymark or WCP should sell the backer rod but list it as a pool noodle so its legal haha

[mrnoble]

@jedgar6

I don’t think there’s inspectors out there doing core samples on your bumpers.

You’d be surprised

[mrnoble]

“We’ve decided that grey is a great color for our pool toys, it matches the contemporary decor in our homes, so we are now offering this 2.5” pool noodle in shades of grey from light to dark, we think it looks very chic and we expect you to like it too!"

[jedgar6]

Must have made someone mad. I will say the worst experience with an inspector we ever had was one where they stuck their hand deep into the robot (where it’d be nearly impossible to do while working on the robot) and “found” a sharp edge. They then required us to file edges till the inspection period was over (or so it felt like). I’ve since learned to just ask for a new inspector.

[Pizzatc]

@Mark_Wasserman

This comes out to approx. 3000lbs. IF absorbed over the 2.5 inches. A pool noodle is done absorbing way before the 3000lb. which leaves a force more like a rubber mallet than a cushion. This is why most noodles turn to mush.

That’s what I’m seeing on our old bumpers. One thing I thought of is changing out pool noodles for an alternative material, one idea I had was Medical foam which is designed to deform and hold weight so it might make for a good alternative.

[Zaque]

Agree with others who have said that the 4 propulsion motor restriction will do nothing to abate this problem, it will only keep it from getting outrageously worse. Last year the amount of teams with 8 drive motors on their swerve was within a rounding error of zero. All of the damage seen in the other thread is from 4-motor swerves, kit-bots and other tank drives that likely have no more than 6, and mostly 4 motors, and a handful of other drive types, i.e. exactly what we will see next year. Except next year we will have Krakens and Neos Vortex adding even more power.

I am intrigued by the idea to move to larger diameter pool noodles. I think that option, with careful application of bumper zone height, gets us most of the benefit of a three-noodle-tall bumper without being quite as much of an impediment to over-the-bumper intakes, plus it gives more of a “crumple zone” to absorb impact.

[Mark_Wasserman]

The obstacles don’t have to be high per se. Examples would be 2012, 2015, 2016 are good examples. Agreed that human line of sight should be considered.

@XaulZan11

Didn’t the (original) 2020 game do a decent job of that?

Most of the field yes but there was a 50+ft straight lane if you passed under the color wheel. That year our strategy was to run full speed from one side to the other passing under the color wheel which sometimes ended in badness.

@mrnoble

I like the idea of a 3-noodle-high bumper option

Yes, better than now but at the end of the day, whatever the “cushion” is, needs to be fully compressed @ approx. 3000-6000lbs. Whether hollow or solid, I don’t think the humble pool noodle is up to the task.

[Mark_Wasserman]

@mrnoble

These have a more consistent quality from what I have seen and are made of the same material; they’re just not sold as “pool noodles” and are thus technically not allowed. This is an arcane and pedantic rule and should be changed.

[mrnoble]

The original genius of the plywood and pool noodle design that Woody and Al came up with (I’m pretty sure it was those two, correct me someone) is that it could be done by almost anyone, as the materials are ubiquitous. I’d hate to shift too far away from that. I do think we can consider other materials, but if they’re to be made of harder-to-source stuff it will be on FIRST and the local networks to help less informed teams get their robots into compliance before events.

[Aaron_Li]

The hollow cores can even be deformed simply by duct-taping too tightly during bumper building.

[Aaron_Li]

I wonder if mattress toppers would work as well? Havent touched one in a while so not sure if it may be too soft.

[mrnoble]

One option I’ve seen discussed is having a standard polypropylene material made for teams in a “D” cross-sectional profile, using the same amount of space as a pair of 2.5" diameter pool noodles, but filling in the gaps which seem to cause some of the damage we’ve been seeing.

I have no idea what it would cost to spec out this custom profile.

[Pizzatc]

@mrnoble

I have no idea what it would cost to spec out this custom profile.

Probably something like this

[Richard_Wallace]

@Mark_Wasserman

Add congestion to the field that slows everybody down.

The cure for the problem of chaos is more chaos.

[Cory_Walters]

An exact sample of this was made from Robopromo a few years ago and FIRST turned it down because of how hard it would be to source that shape for inventory.

[gerthworm]

mmmm pool lasagna noodles

[Patrick3357]

I think it would be great to require solid core noodles, or find some alternate material that would perform better if the distribution is figured out. I also think that solid softwoods could be banned in favor of plywood (5 ply min) or some hardwoods (balsa is technically a hardwood by many definitions). I also think the GDC should be trying to eliminate anything that can cut or snag bumper fabric.

All that said teams are responsible for their design, if they are bending frames, that’s up to them to fix with thicker tubes or more reinforcement, and I know a lot of the torn bumpers on my team come from practicing on a home field with too many sharp edges.

[Michael_Corsetto]

These look promising!

[mrnoble]

No kidding? That’s news to me but not super surprising, again I think the genius of the bumpers has always been that they aren’t hard to source material for.

[Mark_Wasserman]

The red and blue things or the people sporting them.

The dude in blue has the face of my 6 year old grandkid when I say he can’t have candy.