We are currently using the rhino treads from AndyMark.com and are going to use the bumper mounts that are made for them. This is our second year in participating in the FRC for our team and the first year we have had to make bumpers.
Question 1: Our team decided to make reversible bumpers this year and so in doing that they have a little bit of red showing on the side when they are blue and a little bit of blue showing on the side when they are red. We were wondering if this was OK to have or if we need to cover the exposed part. The link below is a gallery of our robot and the bumpers we have.
Question 2: On the corners of our robot, we have a square gap that isn’t allowed. As of right now we have four 8 inch pieces of bumpers and need to make the other four. What would be the best plan of action? Would it be legal to make four more bumpers that have 8 inch ply wood but an extra 2.5 inches or so of pool noodle on one side to fill in the space, so one regular 8 inch piece and the extended 8 inch piece make one corner together? Do the bumper corners need to be connected to each other by something or could they just be next to each other?
Judging from other threads on here, your bumpers as they are won’t pass inspection. I’d suggest making bands of fabric 2.5" wide that velcro around the ends if you can’t find a slicker way of doing it.
As for the corners, the bumper section of the game manual will hopefully answer any question you have on what to put in that corner. It has diagrams of a number of solutions. Important to remember: The manual is literal, so you don’t have to do anything that it doesn’t tell you to. I don’t believe it has anything to say on whether the corners need to be connected, so you shouldn’t need to.
You’re on the right track by using extended pool noodle material. As dradel pointed out, there are images in the Manual to show allowed methods–try R29.
I don’t recall anything in the rules forbidding separate bumper segments, but we’ve always included an angle bracket of some sort at each corner to provide the best protection. Mitering the fabric around that corner is not terribly difficult to have it look decent, even without a single stitch (just staples). A continuous fabric around the corner is also much less likely to be torn away in a glancing blow at the corner.