Re: A plea for a quieter pit area
 

You are correct... I Don't :)

Re: A plea for a quieter pit area
 

Back in my day of cart-pulling as a driver, I generally liked to avoid the shouting of "robot" as well, generally sticking to a "pardon me" or "excuse us." If there's a large, congested, group of people just standing, I can understand a bit more urgency/volume, but there's no need to scream "ROBOT" if there's one person walking in front of you.

Re: A plea for a quieter pit area
 

I can semi confirm this. One of the students on my team said they were told to yell robot by a judge*. I pointed out that it's a matter of discretion. If the walkway is clear, then you have very little reason to be yelling "robot". I'll definitely try and have them change tactics when transporting the robot. Or at least their tone of voice... :rolleyes:


* I'm not completely sure who told them. Nor do I remember which student it was, so I can't ask either.

Re: A plea for a quieter pit area
 

WHAT? SORRY! I CAN'T HEAR YOU SCREAMING LOUDLY BECAUSE OF THE OVERLY-LOUD BASS!

Sometimes it leaves me to wonder if it is really the problem of people just shouting too loudly or if the bass is too loud, requiring screaming at the top of students' lungs in order to get through the crowd, especially when large teams decide to spill out of their pit or having people who aren't used to seeing robots on carts looking at the robots in the middle of the isle. It is very hard sometimes to be heard over the music, so the "Excuse me... Robot..." becomes "HEY! GUYS! PAY ATTENTION! I NEED TO GET THE ROBOT TO THE FIELD SO WE CAN PLAY! HEY! CAN YOU PLEASE GET OUT OF THE WAY?"

So perhaps part of the solution is to turn down the music, not let people clog the isle and make sure new and or non FIRST people are aware that robots are almost constantly being transported around and they need to pay attention and remove themselves from mid-isle... ::ouch::

Just my $.02

Re: A plea for a quieter pit area
 

This is exactly the problem. There is no need to notify the surrounding pits that your robot is coming through. The people in the surrounding pits don't need to know, don't care about your robot coming through, and don't need to hear your yelling. If you need to yell, you're doing it wrong.

The noise in there is already bad enough that I have to yell to someone standing right next to me, just so they can hear what tool to get from the box. Yelling over music and background noise is one thing. Yelling over other people yelling "robot!" is quite another, which I'd prefer to not do.

Re: A plea for a quieter pit area
 

What, you mean 120 decibels isn't an appropriate volume for music? You SHOULDN'T be able to hear it outside... across the street.

Re: A plea for a quieter pit area
 

My coach had a business call, and he ran across the street to our hotel in Milwaukee and he still heard light music.... O_O

Yeah, I'm thinking the music is a touch loud, no doubt adding to the issue [and the headaches. Still recovering -.-]

Re: A plea for a quieter pit area
 

Thanks for this post. I never considered before this that over the noise of the music and power tools, people yelling "robot" would be annoying to people.

I agree that visitors will find this very annoying, but at least at the Seattle Regional, it has proven to be a very effective way of getting people out of the (very cramped) isles.

This year there will be 100 teams at the two seattle regionals (run at the same time and venue), which means literally over a thousand people in the pits.

Keeping others' concerns in mind, however, I will be sure to pass on to my team that we should be mindful of our loudness as we transport our robot. I'm sure that we will stil lfind that we will need to yell "Robot coming through!" a few times, but we will do our best not to be obnoxious about it.

Re: A plea for a quieter pit area
 

The talk about the Kettering District makes something so much clearer to me now (and a little bit more frustrating):

I was standing in my pit area, talking to my fellow mentors about something when a young team walked by and screamed "ROBOT!" right in my ear...I was not in the way, and neither was anyone else, they just were yelling it about every five seconds.

I turned around and said, somewhat crossly, "Saying 'excuse me' is a much better way of clearing the path."
The poor student replied with, "'ROBOT' *is* FIRST for 'excuse me'" and then kept walking along.

It seemed to me that there was much more yelling of "ROBOT" at the Kettering District than at any other event that I've attended, and I'm now wondering if it was because someone directed teams to do this. ....which is utterly absurd. If you were that person, please stop, it bothers me. :)

Re: A plea for a quieter pit area
 

It's precisely this type of behavior that caused me to start this thread. It truly is odd how widespread this is, like instructions were announced in some mass e-mail I didn't get.

Re: A plea for a quieter pit area
 

Much like the phrase "Graciously accept" or calling the Championships "Nationals" this is one of the forms of FIRST crabgrass/dandelions that is stubbornly rooted. Only sustained weeding over a long time will be able to uproot it; and if you ignore it, it won't go away, instead it will just dig in deeper and spread.

Re: A plea for a quieter pit area
 

Kettering was my FIRST, FIRST event as a mentor. On Friday we were *instructed* (chastised) that we were not notifying correctly when moving to and from the pit. On Saturday, I made it point that when we were passing the Pit check-in table to *kit it up a notch* with my ROBOT! announcement.

I also herd that there was an injury on Friday at Kettering, which may have attributed to the emphasis in which my ROBOT! calling instruction was delivered.

It sounds like others also received this instruction at Kettering.

Sorry if my Robot! offended anyone... :(

Re: A plea for a quieter pit area
 

Someone needs to remind our venues that the event is now the FIRST World Championship and not Nationals, http://twitpic.com/25aumb/full

It was my understanding (I was, regrettably, locked in my room doing homework that day) that that injury was related to a student's hand trying to occupy the same space as a chain and sprocket. Besides, I don't understand how being obnoxiously loud is any safer than a polite "Excuse us". Guess I'm just old fashioned.

Re: A plea for a quieter pit area
 

The problem is that you have several issues:

1. Too many people yelling robot way too loud! I never had our kids yell robot but, "Excuse us, robot coming through" worked just fine along with kindly asking.

2. Overcrowded pits. I don't understand why teams have 15 people in their pit at one time! To make it better these are the teams who have a ton of storage/shelving in their pits so they all spill in the aisle. I came back from a match to find several members of one such team in our pit working on their programming because our table was clear! :mad:

Unfortunately at events like Championships where there is plenty of room in the pit aisles but at regionals there isn't a lot and I don't understand how it is servicing our sponsors and parents when the pit is so crowded. I wish that FIRST and teams would become more proactive in enforcing smaller pit crews.

Re: A plea for a quieter pit area
 

I agree..to an extent. I do believe that calling out "ROBOT" is essential to safety. I've seen teams that don't do that and who are pulling the robot backward crash into other people. I do agree that the music is up way too loud. Our team takes decible readings and in the pit I was getting 97 DCB and in the stands up to 102 DBC keep in mind that over 85 is dangerous fro more that 8 hours and over 95 for more than 4 hours. After 85 DBC, in factories, OSHA requires workers to wear ear protection. We keep earplugs in our pit for our memebrs and anyoner else who wants them. DJs, please keep the music a bit lower!