Drivers: Who listens to the anouncers?
 

Hello,

For the drivers out there, who listens to the field announcer for help? Things like time, what other robots are doing, and whos having problems? At first I didn't, but I have grown to depend on them...

Kevin Antaki
Team 481

IM Me: xpalendocious

I never listened to the announcer, just my "coach", who was actually just another student. He told me everything from how much time we had left to which stacks I should go knock down, all of which allowed me to concentrate on the actual driving and forget about strategy. Honestly, I didn't even hear the crowd, much less the announcer, during matches.

--Rob

I listened when they said we sheared off our arm because I didn't even see it happen. But don't let that make you worry about our robot. It is one of the most robust in the crowd. I also listened when the anouncer said "And the Circuit Breakers are doing their happy dance on top of the platform!" Those were a couple of great matches. Everyone else was either flipped or disabled in some way so we just spun around on the ramp waving our arms for the last 30 seconds. Does anyone have video of that?

As one of those "coaches" I can say fairly confidentely that the driver is paying far too much attention to what he is doing to listen to the announcer. This isn't neccessarily a bad thing, that's what I'm there for. ;)

I usually only listened to the announcer when I couldn't see what I was doing or when we were fighting for the ramp. Another thing that helped me out when my robot was on the other side of the field was looking at the huge screen instead of the playing field. It was much easier to drive like that when the boxes hadn't been knocked down in auto mode because the screen usually showed the whole playing field. I usually have our operator read out the time to me.

I am the operator, and only once has my drive team given me good information. The annoucer is usually accurate, so that helps. And as for not paying attn to the crowd, i think thats because you cant hear them. We blew a gear box, and our robot was making horrific ringing/grinding/dieing noises. Or so i was told. I couldnt hear it behing the plexi

Listen? Never!
 

When im behind the glass, i ignore everything else besides my drive team. My coach tells me what to do, i do it. I lot of times, i don;t even realzie something big has happened till after the match, when we go pick up the robot.

I never listen to the announcers. In my mind, they're entirely blanked out. I've glanced at the screen once or twice, though. Between me and Steph, our coach, we keep track of the whole match on our own.

I ususally only listen to Andy (the coach)who calls out strategy and DJ (our human player) who calls out time, and Clark (Operator) who tells me what state our "Puck" control is in. Very rarely do i listen to the announcer, but every once in a while i hear a short little phrase!

This is a weird answer.. During any given match, I am only concious of what is said by the other members of my drive team. But after the match, I remember what the announcer and our partner were saying while the match was in progress. Our partner always yells to us their current status, and what they need help with, and I react to it. But I don't really hear what they said until after the match.. yeah, I am contradicting myself, but I'm saying it exactly like it is. Zoning out is the word I guess, and it happens automatically to drivers, I would hope. Whatever.

When I drive I usually block everything out, except for the other driver mostly. I know what my mission is and I complete it while checking with my alliance partner. I do listen to some comments from the coaches, but usually they dont have that much to say except tracking the score. When I run out of things to do and am sitting at the top of the ramp, thats usually when i listen to my team.

I don't Listen Really
 

I just try to black it out except our strategy guy, Punar and our driver, Sanddrag. Otherwise, I don't listen unless the match gets really boring or they say something really surprising (like that we sheared off our arm)!

I have never listened to the announcers, even though i am the one driving the arm and am thus not doing very much, i am usually too busy watching our robot run around and trying to see if we are winning.

Most of the time I'm in my "zone". This means that if you yell something unrelated into my ear I'm liable to look at you and blink, then continue to play. I usually end up so wrapped up in the game that its hard to realize that its over even though I was to one yelling: Get on top!!!!!! Get on top!!!!! 3!!!..2!!!..1!!!..
:D

Not just drivers...
 

Hey, Matt here from team #16, Baxter Bomb Squad. I'm one of the human players for our team this year, and even I don't notice the announcer. I stay focused on calculating the score and suggesting strategy options to our coach... I don't pay much attention to anything else.

Some of the commentary provided by the announcer is rather interesting, though. Watching videos of our matches, I was rather surprised how informational the commentary really was.

as a driver, human player, and semi-coach, i've experienced all :p.

when i'm a driver, i'm aware of everything, but unless i need the information, i ignore it. it's really cool, i can selectivly control input :). so i'll step up to start driving, and ask for input from my coach, who tells me where to be, and then i just go from there, taking a bit from the field, a bit from the drive team, and then driving a bit. my biggest problem while driving is keeping track of the time, because i never look at the clock, unless i'm on the ramp.

as human player, it was the same thing almost. before the match, i stood on the pad, and i just cleared my mind, completely unintentionally too. it was the weirdest thing, because all i could think about was "bins go there" and nothing else even crossed my mind. after i got back into the player station, i became coach, for reasons i still don't know. i kept track of time and where the robot needed to be, and relayed the information to the driver, who then made the robot move :p.

all in all, i love the competition, if just for the feeling that for those two minutes nothing else matters. like, at SPBLI, i completely forgot about the world. if you came up and asked me about iraq, i'd give you a blank stare :p. i guess robotics is like a drug, because i know that i was happy just being at a competition, and making the robot work.

The noise level is so loud and of such poor quality, that I couldn't hear the announcers even if I wanted to, which I don't, I'm normally too busy looking at the field, coaching the pilot and talking to my mentor to pay much attention. The annoucer is also wrong sometimes too - they mix up numbers sometimes.

we normally had the human player and overseer person tell the head lookout the info who would then pass it on to the driver. all this was done very quickly and only one person spoke so not to confuse the driver. worked pretty well. didn't look too much at the screen but occasionally listened to the announcer.

Well, as one of our drivers for my team, i only hear anything with in my 2-foot bubble.

No announcer. No crowd. Only the fellow students and engineer that i know the voice of. I don't do this on purpose, my brain just goes into auto-filter mode, and that's it. I only see the field, too! No crowd. Very-very little of the big-screen. And that's really it...

when I'm driving, I don't really hear anybody. nobody, nada, zippo. When my mentor wants me to do something, he has to smack me upside the head to get my attention first.

I usually just rely on myself, and I only notice the announcer when he says something about my team. The other people at the station, all students, don't really contribute anything important except for time and bins in each zone, and except for the human player, who's about a foot taller than me and can see everything.

BTW, did anyone rely on the real-time scoring on the big screen at all? I didn't, 'cause it was too much bother to look away to the side.

When I was driver I usually did something similar to what Ian has described. I would listen to things that I needed and tune out the things I didn't need. A lot of the times I didn't hear anything, even the music because I was concentrating on the robot and everything that was happening on the field. The hardest thing was often time but I found an easy way to keep track of that is to yell for your coach or a teammate to blast out the time remaining. I would recommend against relying on the field announcer because by the time they rattle a bit of info it is most likely out of date already as the things on the field happen at a rate faster than one can comprehend sometimes. Hope that helps a little and good luck!!!

I usually don't listen to the announcer. However, it is a good idea to have a person on your team that watches the screen and calls out the live score every 10-15 seconds. It's not completely accurate, but it helps with strategy a lot.

When i am up there everything is blocked out of my mind except for the field and the coaches and the other driver. For those two minutes i could not tell you what music was played or what the announcer said or what the crowd is doing, but during those two minutes i still could tell you what my coaches said every match and what happen perfectlly

I've learned to tune out everything except the Operator. We've learned to take it easy during matches so that we can think more clearly. We usually talked about our autonomous program during the slower parts of a match. In practice rounds, he played Solitaire on the laptop while i brushed up my skills. So, just take it easy and everything will turn out ok...:)

...what else did he tell you? He looks like he is really into it. ;)

From the other end of the speakers...
 

Being a strategy person during the year, and an announcer in the offseason, I tend to yell alot at robots on the field. I have been known to let a few "hints/constructive criticisms" out over the mic when I call matches. Maybe some drivers should listen! At least in the New England Area for offseason competitions!

Actually its always best to block out everyone except your drive crew...dont' listen to me ;)

Good Luck All,
Andy Grady

Ya its def. to hard to listen to all that stuff escpeically if the announcer has a bias to another team. He might say someting to make them look better then what they are really doing

No offense to the announcers but what they say isn't usually very helpful.. 90% of the time they are explaining what happened instead of a normal play-by-play. The most helpful tool that most drivers ignore is the Big Screen on the wall. Back in 2000 it was very helpful when you were dropping balls in the troughs from the far side of the field. If you take your eyes off the bot for a second and look its a great POV. With all the bots with sails this year it would definately help you see those blind spots.