I thought somebody told me that it was legal to loosen the screw and remove the red cap on the new Bumper Switch so that the kids could configure the sensor anyway they like, but I haven’t found mention of that anywhere. Does anyone happen to know?
The only reference to the bumper switch in the game manual is <R16b>:
Internal or external mechanical repairs of VEX Limit and Bumper switches are permitted.
Modifying the metal arm on the Limit Switch is permitted. Using components from these
devices in other applications is prohibited.
The use of the word ‘repair’ makes it not totally clear to me whether or not it would be legal to make a mechanical modification to a bumper switch that was already working. In other words, is ‘repair’ restricted only to restoring non-working bumper switches to a working state, or is any purely mechanical modification to a bumper switch legal?
I did find a relevant Q&A thread from a previous season, in which the following was deemed legal:
Remove the casing [of the bumper switch] from the internal electronics and use it as a button switch without any of the housing around it? (In case it needs to fit somewhere really small.)
So, it seems like there is at least some precedent to suggest that mechanical modifications to the bumper switch are legal in general. However, this isn’t exactly the use you describe, and I’m not sure how past Q&A rulings carry over to the current game, so it might be worth asking on the Q&A site to be sure.
Interesting. Thanks. And you’re right about nobody really knowing how old Q+A answers apply to current games.