2005 - Radio Communication
 

I was reading through the 2005 rules trying to find anything about radio communication. What I am referring to is radio communication between the "coach" on the field and someone in the stands (like we do in football).

I seem to recall something being said about this yet I can not find it in the rules. Can some one jog my memory?

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

Dang, I could have sworn that rule existed too but I can't find it. There is a rule in the "At the events" section that says no two way radios are allowed in the pit area or near the playing field. Maybe that's the one we're thinking of?

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

I'm having a heck of a hard time finding this in the rules.

I'm absolutely positive it isn't allowed though, and I know I've seen it before.

[edit] I wanted to look through the Q&A's to see if it could be found there (I'm sure someone asked a similar question) but apparently FIRST took it down after the season ended.

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

Yah, I read the "from pits" thing, but what I meant was from the stands. So, can anyone find it or will we see all the team coaches wearing headsets next year? :)

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

If it is indeed missing from the rules, and not hidden somewhere that all 3 of us missed, I'm sure it'll be back in next year.

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

Haha darn it! Should have never made this post, maybe they would have missed it again! :)

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

The rule stating no radio in the pits or playing field covers this. In addition, a Q&A stated that any wireless communication during competition is prohibited, be it cell phones, walkie talkie's or Nextel. This is what shouting is for!

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

What it says:
COACH – A student or adult mentor designated as the team advisor during the match and identified as the
person wearing a “COACH” pin.
DRIVER – A pre-college student team member responsible for operating and controlling the ROBOT.
HUMAN PLAYER – A pre-college student team member designated as the only team member permitted to
introduce the tetras for their team into the field of play/to their robot.
4.2.2 Match Format
A match is 2 minutes and 15 seconds long. At the start of the match, all HUMAN PLAYERS, DRIVERS and
COACHES must stand behind the Team Zone Starting Line, 3 feet away from their Driver’s Station.
4.3.3 General Match Rules (GM)
<G03> Each team shall include one HUMAN PLAYER, two DRIVERS, and one COACH.

What is doesn't say:
<Gxx> Each team,( EDIT deleted, too harsh) (added - may have as many COACHES as they wish outside the Team Zone)

Gentlemen polleese! If you don't want a rule book the size of the World Book Encyclopedia, then quit looking for loopholes where there aren't any.

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

Agreed.

(gets to work on his ginormous five-foot LED code-signaling board) ;)

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

FIRSTSearch is undergoing a server change so it's not currently available, but I found this after a quick search of the Q&A. I remember more extensive rules disallowing any form of communication between the drive team and anyone off the field, be it signs held up by the crowd or telecommunications.
Standard disclaimer regarding past rules not applying to future games.

In any event the purpose of the game rules is not to imagine and categorically list everything you should not do, but to give you guidelines of FIRST's intent and leave it to your developing good judgment to know what's acceptable and what is simply skirting the rules.
-----
ID:1247 Section:7.12 Status:Answered Date Answered:1/19/2005

Q:It's clear walkie-talkies and two-way radios are not allowed. Is there any communication allowed between the COACH and someone in the stands, say, with a cell phone, during a match?
A:No.
-----
ID:1560 Section:7.12 Status:Answered Date Answered:2/9/2005

Q:Will wireless networking be allowed at competitions?

A:Yes in accordance to the statement that follows below, BUT IN NO CIRCUMSTANCES is communication to people or devices outside of the driver station / Team Zone allowed. ...

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

Thanks Mark.

As I said guys I thought I remembered a rule like this but could not find it. I was not looking for a "loophole", it did not seem to be addressed at all in the rules. There is a fine line between trying to play within the rules and trying to bend them. It is common in many sports for a coach on a team to have radio communication from someone in the stands due to their different view and does not appear to "out of this world". But thanks Mark, I appreciate you finding this.

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

Yea, I understood from your original post that you were just looking for what was allowed, not attempting anything sneaky. :) My comment wasn't directed at you. I only added that part because of the slight thread drift to legality issues, and the chance that some future reader might follow the drift of that thought.

P.S. The rules in 2003 were more explicit on this topic than later rules.
---
DQ8 Team members may not use any remote communication devices, such as air phones, walkie-talkies, etc., at anytime during a FIRST Robotics Competition event.
...Cell phones and pagers are allowed, but not in the Alliance Station.

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

There have been incidents in the past where team members were observed signalling their driving team from the stands. I remember one particular case in 2003 where a team was disqualified for allowing a mentor to use hand signals to indicate their robot's position, as observed from an elevated position in the opposite-side bleachers. The rules-based justification was, I believe, that he was acting as a coach, and was therefore outside of the driving station, was not wearing a badge, and there was already a coach in the driver's station. The reason for the convoluted justification was that there was no rule that simply said "no information may be deliberately sent to any drive team from outside of the playing field and alliance stations; violators will be disqualified".

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

In the "old days" before IFI, the old RC systems operated on the UHF band, the same band those little disposable radios (FRS) operate. Any type of radio freq. interference would do crazy things to the robots. The current IFI systems operate in the 900 mhz band, and go crazy if an 800 Mhz 5 watt portable is used next to one. At the risk of upsetting someone at IFI, they are not the best in terms of RF. Rumor has it that IFI maybe going to 2.4 Ghz. (As if there is not enough there already! Then look out you will not be able to run your WiFi. That last statement was a joke!)

One of the problems that concerned everyone at the championship event was the lack of channels available with 6 robots on the field at once. At one time it was thought that they would have to stager the matches to have everything work right.

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

Thanks Tristan!
Very interesting, hand signals, makes since for the 2003 game. I do wonder how detailed they could get as "acting as a coach". I think this is pretty clear if your interpretation is that you can be acting as a coach from the stands. but take this theoretical situation:
A robot tips over on the far side of the 2003 field (unable to be seen by the drivers). The entire team in the stands emits a groan from the stands. The drive team knows exactly what happened, it happened quite a few times in practice. They do their righting manouvers and get on with the match, win by a hair on a last minute play by them. The team would have taken well over a few seconds to figure out what had happened if they had not heard the crowed groan, therefore probably would have lost the match.

I know this sounds extreme, but as a soccer referee I deal with these kind of theoretical all the time, deciding how I would call it :)

So are the referees going to get into the "intent" of the crowed or call it like it is, a signal from the crowed, whether intentional or not, which impacted the result of the match.

Just a lil' brain food! :yikes:

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

And not only do you get situations like Ethulin described, but then there's where a whole team starts yelling at the drivers to do something. Of course, the refs and drivers have a hard time hearing it over the other teams and music and crashing of robots, and this is extremely common, so they will likely let it slide.

Back to the original question, I think the general rule of thumb is, no talking to the coach during the match unless you are a driver, and definitely not by radio/cell phone/flashlight(Morse code and equivalents)/hand signals. Yelling at him is likely not a good idea because he may get distracted, and you don't want that, do you?

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

If anyone is truly capable of reading and understanding Morse code while playing an FRC match, I think we should let them. I mean, that would be some crazy skills. Someone as skilled as that deserves to have a rule exception in their favor.

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

Agreed. But I really wonder what will happen when something like my situation DOES happen and the loosing team protests.

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

Absolutely nothing, because you described the most outlandish, implausible situation ever.

People are reading way too far into the rules.

All it means is no blatant forms of communication between the drive team and members not on the field. Ie: no radios, cell phones, or other verbal communication. No signaling to the drivers from off the playing field.

If you move on to "implied communication", so to speak, FIRST would need to find twice as many refs so half of them could police the stands and make sure nobody groaned in the wrong place at the wrong time :rolleyes:

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

If they meant blatant they would have said blatant. The reason they did not is because one man's blatant is another's covert.
As a soccer referee we get into situations far more outlandish than this and do not disregard them as "outlandish" but we apply the rules and find the correct course of action.

In soccer we have things called "FIFA clarifications" similar to what FIRST has just for these kind of situations, but nothing is just disregarded for being improbable or unlikely.

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

FIRST has told us to take what the rules say at face value--ie: don't become lawyers. It seems like the intent of the rule is fairly clear.

As for the exact situation you describe, everytime I've seen a robot get flipped, the opponent ends up cheering and the flipped team stops cheering. I don't see how this could possibly be interpreted as violating the spirirt of the rule. The odds of this ever occurring are so low as to be a non factor. In fact, it's probably never happened once since 1992.

Speaking from experience in last years game (which was probably one of the hardest ever to ref), referees have way too much to deal with already to add something as subjective as interpreting crowd noise as being unfairly advantageous to a team in such a situation.

If every rule contained verbiage to cover every single situation that may or may not come up, there would be multiple phone book sized volumes. Instead we just refer to situations using the basic guidelines given, and common sense.

$0.02

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

I guess I did not express my thoughts very well in my first post. The original intent of the rule goes back to the "old days" when the robot controls left alot to be desired. It was strickly a case of radio interference, that the no 2 way radio rule was developed. This was also before the popularity of small hand held cell phones. The old transmitters and receivers were very sensitive to any type of radio frequency intererence, causing the robots to be uncontrollable. While the IFI controls are much better, they are still susceptible to RFI.

Any good RF engineer will tell you that filling a area full of RF energy, is like a room full of noise, it gets hard to hear the one voice that you want to hear. Radios use filters to single out a single the frequency that they want to use. These filters and associated circuitry can get quite expensive, and bulky. In an effort to control costs, minimal filtering is used. Necessitating the the no 2 way communication rule.

This is also the reason anytime a team wants to put a wireless TV camera on their robot they have to have it approved by IFI. To ensure it does not cause interference to the control system.

It has only been a secondary ruling that the no communications with the drive team was put into effect. It is also the reason that 2 way radios are not allowed to be used in the pits, by the teams.

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

Im not sure I agree that 'no communication' with anyone else is a hard and fast rule.

I would think that having someone acting like a 3rd base coach, standing along the sidelines, with pre-arranged signals and gestures would break the rules

but, well for example: couple years back, the year with the containers and the ramps. Our bot had 4 wheel drive. In the last several seconds one of our wheels completely fell off the bot. The drivers simply stopped driving and took their hands off the controls. I was standing at the side of the field, pointing to the top of the ramp, jumping up and down and yelling "GO! GO! GO!"

the driver saw me and got the bot to drag itself to the top of the ramp in the last seconds.

Is looking at your team mates and mentors along the sidelines cheating? Is that considered communication? Does it violate the intent of the rules?

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

Hm. Good scenario. I tend to think it does, though personally I think that it SHOULD be allowed but under the laws it is not.

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

there was no pre-arranged understanding for the drive to to watch me on the sidelines for directions or coaching, so at what point does it violate the rules?

if the whole team was jumping up and down yelling GO! GO! GO and pointing to the ramp, would that be illegal coaching? half the team? two people? the mentors only? two mentors?

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

Mybe you should say it this way: No pre-arranged coaching (over airwaves or otherwise) allowed, other than from the designated coach. If the drivers choose to listen to yelled instructions from the sidelines, then that is their choice. This is assuming that they can hear them over the music, other teams, their coach, the other coaches, and any other noise.

I have been in at least one situation where I did not hear someone cheering for me in a competition and only knew about it later. The same could apply here; the drivers may just zone out everything except needed information. In fact, it is quite probable that even if you do try to communicate with them, they will ignore you to do what they need to do.

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

Sounds good. But under the old rules there was no distinction, so you could not apply it. I think that that is opening a whole new can of worms, because then everyone will be talkin' bout what is "pre-arranged" :)

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

I see Ken's point here; a "no communication" rule might be difficult to enforce. While I don't think cheering should necessarily constitute deliberately giving the drivers information (at best, they're communicating information with regard to their approval vs. disapproval, rather than a particular action, strategy or status of the game), I do think that "3^rd base coaching" should be discouraged, or prohibited outright. Though the impact of the extra coach on any particular game is not easily quantified, I think that it might be easier from an enforcement point of view to simply ban it all (except cheering with no discernable message beyond "go team go"¹), and then deal with violations later, or permit it all, and make it clear that you may communicate as you please, be it with signs, hand signals, carrier pigeons or megaphones. By choosing an extreme position, we avoid the difficulty of requiring the referees to judge the level of interaction, and, if they feel it appropriate, to assign a penalty. The fact that the intent of the existing rules is not straightforward, and that no rule exists to explicitly cover several plausible situations (e.g. hand signals, shouting) just makes this type of call more difficult. (And it's perfectly understandable that, given a judgment call with shaky support from a strict interpretation of the rules, that many officials will likely choose to err on the side of leniency, which is simply a manifestation of the "permit everything" case, only now, someone has cause to complain about the decision.²)

I'm going to single out Cory's post here, because I don't agree that the intent is so clear-cut. Of course FIRST doesn't want interference with robot controls; that's the first, and most important reason why radios are banned. The second reason is to avoid drivers or coaches with an extra voice in their ears; that's also straightforward (judging by the Q&A response above). The point of contention is whether or not other forms of communication are valid; there exists a precedent for preventing deliberate signalling from the stands—but it was based on liberal interpretation of the rules. By the same token, there exist many precedents permitting teams to signal from floor level; shouting "up", "down", or gesturing at objects and locations, for example. So the question is, how much communication is too much, and how can FIRST craft a rule in such a way that it is obvious? If it's anything less than obvious, it makes more work for the referees, and can easily breed animosity over differences of interpretation, should such a situation arise.

Additionally, I take issue with the idea that the rules have to be thick like a phone book to be comprehensive. Though all-encompassing rules have a way of being long-winded, the trick is to (attempt to) be absolutely clear in one's choice of language, so as to communicate as much intent as possible, and to cover as many situations as possible, without wasting space on text that doesn't add any more meaning to the rule. In all seriousness, that offhand remark about lawyers (was it really Dean that said it; I don't remember) is being taken in a rather destructive direction—the fact that lawyers write long, drawn-out documents is a reflection of their understanding the consequences of not being precise. In truth, engineers ought to recognize the same—and very likely, most do, loath as they are to admit it. The fact that a rule is long, or that it specifies contingencies for unlikely situations doesn't make it a bad rule; it may be less fun for us to read, but at least you can't justify debating a call when the appropriate rule is specific, and the referee doesn't need to make an interpretation on the spot.

¹ For greater certainty, I'm not advocating an end to cheering, nor a draconian approach where one official monitors the crowd. Just a low-key statement in the rules that would have teams remind their members to avoid acting as spotters for their drivers.
² That their decision is final isn't important; of course people will express their dissatisfaction.

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

Actually, we have a number of team members who have ham radio licenses and a bunch are studying to pass their test. A few do know Morse code, although they are not very proficient.
Part of mastering Morse code (or voice communications) is tuning out everything else. It is a skill a lot of people master.
Anyway, a lot of Morse code communications use abbreviations, not a lot of text (eg: SOS instead of " I have an emergency and need assistance") Just sending a "R" could mean turn right, "L" left and a few others. It would be real simple. Its a real advantage when the sender and receiving person speak different languages. They can still communicate a lot of information.
Morse code is alive and well.
There have been a number of times when the kids are queuing up and they need something from the pits (we forgot a battery once) We thought if we had a few kids to relay sign language messages, we could quickly communicate with the pits. Several kids learned sign language, but we were not fast or accurate enough. We even contacted a local school for the deaf to see if a few would join our team. It never materialized though.

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

I have been reading through this thread hoping to agree with some of the items and I am not sure I can. None of us have a clear idea what might have taken place from the stands to the driver's station when the that team was called for the communication infraction. That being said, I don't think that it should be interpreted as a blanket rule against communication from team or alliance members to the coaches or drivers. This has gone on as long as I have been part of this competition and likely since the beginning. I think the two issues here is one, no wireless communications and two, no communication from off field coaches to on field coaches. The first is a simple issue of interference with wireless robot communications and the second is a violation of the "one coach, two drivers, one human player" allowed per team. If a ref interpreted the actions of that mystery team as a violation of the second issue than he was correct in his enforcement.
Learning Morse Code is not that big a skill, even I have done it. At one time it was a requirement for boy scouts to know both the Morse Code and semaphore (flag code) for rank advancement. Millions of people worldwide have learned the code for their amateur radio licenses and use it regularly for their hobby. (Myself included, WB9UVJ)

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

How about communication between the two drivers? Our have complained about not being able to hear each other and I'm considering making a pair of headsets so they can talk without distraction.

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

If you're able to do that without a radio or cell phone, or any other device transmitting a signal, feel free.

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

I don't think there could be much said about that, as long as it was wired. Get a few good pairs of the headsets meant for helicopters, noise reducing ear cups, and noise canceling mic, and wire them together. Though I'm sure the refs would like to have at least one look at your circutry to make sure there isnt any rf stuff hidden in there.

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

communcation within the drive team could be accomplished with something like the old air tubes they used on ships and in large factories

its really nothing more than hose and you speak into and listen to the other end. It should be possible to make a set for 3 or 4 people - and the headset would also block some of the crowd noise.

BTW - Morse Code - when you learn morse code your brain is in a different space. You can pick out morse code from a very weak radio signal better than you can hear a human voice, so in a noisy environment it would actually be easier to comprehend (if you had a lot of practice with it).

After using it for a while you dont hear beeps or dots or dashes, you hear letters, and if you are really good, you hear whole words

just like when you listen to english, you dont hear the phonics separately, and think to your self " that was the K sound, that was an E, that was an N -Oh, he said my name!" you hear the words as a whole.

-Ken (KG2ET) :^)

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

Well soccer has only 17 laws and manages to get by. That is due to the uniform interpretations, not just the laws themselves. These interpretations are what makes the game work, not just the slim law book (smaller than all the FRC rules!).

I think what he meant by saying how impressive the Morse code would be was due to being able to read it from the drivers station via huge LED, not that being able no read code itself was too hard.

At this point I think they should just allow communication, would make this whole dispute null and void, making it much clearer. I really think that it would add a very interesting element to the game if there could be "coaches for coaches", if thats how you want to put it, in the stands who can give a overview sense.

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

that would widen the gap between large and small teams. Large teams could easily have 3rd base and 1st base coaches, people up in the bleachers with binoculars and radios, people in the pit monitoring the robots telemetry

and a small team with only 5 or 6 people on the whole team, would end up 'playing against' 15 or 20 people.

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

Whole heartedly agree, some teams at regionals only bring just enough team members to drive.

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

Compared to most teams at our regional our team is pretty small. BUT I take issue with all of this "elevel the playing field" jabber. It seems we are unwilling to reward teams for their organization, fundraisng capacities etc. Where do you draw the line in "leveling the playing field", should we all just have to by a kit, not be allowed to use any outside parts or tools, have 2 mentors (no more or less) involved with the build process, 3 members max to the regional? Where does one choose to stop? It seems to me (and no, you do not have to agree, so please, do not just flame) that if you want to make it even for everyone fine, do so, but it does not seem logical to make some arbitrary judgement of how much is too much.

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

Theres really two parts to FIRST, the game that is played, and which changes every year, and the mentors spending time with the students to show them what engineering is all about

the game is arbitrary - we could design dishwashers, or clocks, or egg droppers - any system that presents an engineering challenge, so the students get to experience an entire engineering design cycle.

FIRST trys hard to make the game itself reasonably fair, so that all teams are designing to the same requirements, playing by the same rules

but the other part: if fairness is a measure of FIRST, then no, that part is not fair. Some teams have tons of mentors and resources, and some have little or none. Fortunately we are not competing against each other to see who is the 'most inspired'.

but on the playfield, would you contend that some football teams should be allowed to have 50 players on the field at the same time, because they come from a big school with lots of kids who all want to play?

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

i agree with both sides of this arguement...
FIRST events are ment to be a huge group of high school students gathering together to expand therir knowledge in the field of engineering

some teams may have upwards of 50 students while others may only have 3 or 4
this may be for different reasons, but in the long run they both have advantages and disadvantages

the team with 50 students can easily have people scouting or people strictly assigned to being "cheerers"...all of this will be done from the stands

in my opinion the team that has only a few students may have a slight upper hand

scouting can be done in the stands by others, but in the long run the people that are down on the field contribute the most to weather a team will be considered as a alliance partner or not (simply because they have worked with them or seen them work)

the number of people on your team doesn't matter it is the heart within the members that you do have

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

Thats right! a team with 5 or 8 students? Look how much time each student gets to spend with a mentor! Look at how much hands-on time they get with the bot, and the controls, and the SW and the wiring

every student on the team probabally gets in some driving time

small teams are not fair - the students get way more attention and inspiration! :^)

Re: 2005 - Radio Communication
 

Ethulin,
You may have misinterpreted my meaning. When I speak of level playing field, I am addressing the concept that I want all teams, large and small, to have the experience that once on the field they are playing their robot and their drivers and their coach against the same complement of people as the teams they are playing. I want all teams exposed to the same inspiration that my students experience when at competition. I want students from any team to know they can approach me with a problem or a question about my team, robot or strategy, and get a truthful answer to the best of my ability. I am not alone in this effort. If I was I am sure I couldn't do this alone. Pick a name from the CD member list and in all likelyhood you will find a mentor, young or old, engineer or not, who is willing to do the same thing I am. We have a gut feeling as to what is right and what is a level playing field. We know this is an imperfect system, but it beats whatever is in second place. Oh well, now I see I have gone on too long again. That's the tough part of getting the first response before I have my morning coffee. Please don't consider this a flame, I am just passionate about this program. Please ask if you have questions.