Warning: Operator Button Colors Matter!
 

The Adult/Student coach thread reminded me of an unfortunate incident at Lone Star last weekend. I was wandering the pits assisting teams when I heard a red card called on the field for a COACH operating the robot. <G56> says that only DRIVERS can operate the OPERATOR CONSOLE during a match. They mention this a couple of times, so it seems unlikely that an adult would actually step up and grab the controls and earn a red card, right? Well that's not what happened here. The team actually misplaced one of their operator badges and decided to use an extra badge from an earlier regional. A badge with a yellow dot on it, also known as a COACH's badge. So a ref saw a COACH operating the robot and quite correctly issued a red card.

My point obviously being that <G56> doesn't care how old you are, just whether you're wearing a DRIVER's badge or a COACH's badge. If your badge has a yellow dot on it, you can't drive the robot, period. In fact, the only people driving and feeding should be the student with blue badges with no dots. Any other badge means you're not a DRIVER or FEEDER.

Yes, I know most all of you don't need the reminder, but rookies might. And you might want to double check your alliance mates just in case. It's not always communicated effectively at an event, so we should take it on ourselves to look out for our them.

Re: Warning: Operator Button Colors Matter!
 

Wow, that's like a total herp derp. Being a veteran team has it's foibles!

Re: Warning: Operator Button Colors Matter!
 

Do the HUMAN PLAYERS actually have different colored badges? I've never seen that.. and I've been human player a few times.

However, that is interesting to note. Wouldn't they also get a mark for having two coaches then? What about breaking the rule in which you need two drivers?

Re: Warning: Operator Button Colors Matter!
 

Thanks! This was my first time behind glass at a regional and I think my coach button was mixed for a student button for some time for a few matches but I didn't know the difference.

Re: Warning: Operator Button Colors Matter!
 

For the record, this was a rookie/young team. They had extra badges by dint of attending the Alamo Regional earlier this year.

As I recall, there's 3 types of badges, maybe 4.
1. Operator/human player badges are light blue, not dots. These are interchangeable.
2. COACH badge, same as above, but with a yellow dot. This means no-touchy the controllers. Even to save them from certain doom. (Yes I've seen a penalty for that.)
3. Safety Captain badge. Light green, you don't get field access with this badge.
4. I think I saw media badges at Lone Star? I was roaming the pits 90% of the regional, so I dunno. If I wasn't hallucinating, these were also light green but obviously conveyed field access.

Re: Warning: Operator Button Colors Matter!
 

No, Last year at LSR i was the human player and one match due to some complications i had to step forward and take controls. And my HP button this year was no different than the driver button this year

Re: Warning: Operator Button Colors Matter!
 

I've neither heard of nor seen media badges that resemble the badges worn by the drive team. Everything I've seen that says "MEDIA" on it resembles the square badges worn by volunteers. The registration envelope that my team received at West MI last week only contained two operator, one coach, and one safety captain badge.

Re: Warning: Operator Button Colors Matter!
 

For the media badges it depends, it varies from event to event. We had NI Multimedia and they were give volunteer badges but it said media on the bottom and each team was given a florescent orange sticker for student media.
In Colorado last year they had these plastic pin badges for media.

Re: Warning: Operator Button Colors Matter!
 

As rookies we had it very clearly spelled out to us that if we ever lost one of those badges that they WOULD NOT BE REPLACED, and that our drive team would drop from four down to three.

I'm sure that this is explained to rookies, and I'm sure... in this case... a particular rookie team now better understands the importance of keeping track of their badges.

Jason

Re: Warning: Operator Button Colors Matter!
 

As a part of team que I see many teams having great difficulty taking care of their buttons (one team lost their button 3 times!). I had teams come tho the que line in complete disarray (when the mentors don't understand the concept of the driver's button that's when the problems ensue) and start passing around the buttons amongst teammates to get the right one on the field without realizing that the one with the dot on it denotes the coach and they are not to touch the controls. FIRST needs to explain to teams in theor packet what the drivers buttons are for and how important they are to gain access to the field.
Last year I got into a confrontation with a mentor who claimed I didn't have the authority to deny a student access to the field because it's all about the student when being part of team que my authority about who gets to go on or off the field is EXACTLY my job and another team whined about how unfair it was that drivers buttons were required to participate because their whole drives team was out to lunch and a group of replacements wandered down to take their place and I would not let them go on.
I know people get all bent out of shape when FIRST and the GDC put up all these rules to get in the way of their fun and all but there is a reason why they control access to the rild to just anyone who wants to go out to the field area so that not just any person who wants to check the place out just wanders down there and clutters up the p;ace like they do the pits and grinds the event to a halt.

As for media badges at FLR they had six to give out to teams when their team was out for their match. I don't think Florida let anyone out because there was no room and Chesapeake didn't have a badge and just let it slide if an extra person wandered down (but if six to 8 people were out they were dealt with).
If I had it my way I would just do away with the stupid media badge thing altogether. My job is to get the robot on and off the field and keep the event moving. I do not have the time, the resources and oft times the staff to be bothered with teams need to get a better picture of their drive teams adventures down on the field. Some of the biggest headaches I have had is with media people who just become a general nuisance to an outright irritant giving me attitude because I won't allow them access to the field whenever they feel like it.

Re: Warning: Operator Button Colors Matter!
 

Note to Rookies: Leave your badges in the pit whenever you exit the venue.

Rough lesson to learn the hard way.

Re: Warning: Operator Button Colors Matter!
 

I always explain to my rookie teams to leave the badges in the pits at night and not to let the drive team wander out to lunch. Bring them lunch to the closest point they can go eat it. I recall a team missing being picked for an alliance because they all went out to lunch at an event. :ahh:

Re: Warning: Operator Button Colors Matter!
 

Our driver buttons stay strictly in the toolbox in the pit at all times unless the wearer is in the pit or in queue (or on the practice field before queue).

Re: Warning: Operator Button Colors Matter!
 

I don't understand why they don't write "coach" on the dot.

Re: Warning: Operator Button Colors Matter!
 

The ideal solution seems to be to make the Coach's badge and entirely different color than the Driver's badges - that would probably cut down on a lot of the mistakes.

Or, the Coach doesn't take their badge off? (That's what I do)

Re: Warning: Operator Button Colors Matter!
 

This actually happened to 1766 at our first regional. The person who was passing out the buttons apparently skipped the explanation when they gave us ours. We went the entire practice day with the "coach" driving the robot and nobody said a thing. Our first qualification round, we get carded for it. I think that there should at least be mention of the yellow dot in the manual somewhere if there is a red card for not knowing.

Re: Warning: Operator Button Colors Matter!
 

In case gracious professionalism isn't a good enough reason to look out for other teams on this, note the penalty is disablement and a red card. So look out for your mates unless you want to find yourself down a robot.