Petition to end the shouting of ROBOT

[Nirvash]

Originally Posted by Sam390250

Incident with our team, one of the drivers was politely saying, "Excuse us, we need to get through" while pushing the robot. One of the safety officials was in the way and said, "I am not moving until you loudly shout 'Robot!'". This is clearly unnecessary and is forcing/encouraging students to be obnoxious. It also makes the pit a tense and more stressful place than it already is.

I personally do not like the shouting of robot, and find a safety official doing that just weird.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Sam390250

Incident with our team, one of the drivers was politely saying, "Excuse us, we need to get through" while pushing the robot. One of the safety officials was in the way and said, "I am not moving until you loudly shout 'Robot!'". This is clearly unnecessary and is forcing/encouraging students to be obnoxious.

The very next time a safety official does that, I suggest that as many team members as possible get around him and count three, then ROAR "Robot" at him at the top of their lungs. Then, after the match, figure out who to send a complaint letter to about a safety inspector requiring an unsafe practice and furthermore interfering with a team's safe operation to do it.

[Chris is me]

At BAE, our students were told by safety judges that we MUST yell "ROBOT!!!" in the pits while walking. On our team we follow the lead of many teams whom have posted in this thread - one member of our drive team walks ahead of the robot cart and politely asks people to move to the side so our robot can get through. When this explanation wouldn't satisfy the safety judges, two mentors from our team had to step in and explain that shouting "ROBOT!!!" was against our team's code of conduct and that we would not be shouting it during the competition. They were still adamant about it, but we kept doing it our way regardless. Probably didn't help our Safety Award chances one bit, but we would rather be professionals. At least they didn't physically blockade the robot like at some other regionals.

The practice certainly shouldn't be mandatory. Not sure if it should be outright banned (maybe occasionally shouting IS the only way to get through a particularly tricky situation quickly, I don't know), but it's a stupid idea to enforce its practice and the more you hear "robot" at competition, the more you tune it out.

Also, the idea that the Bill of Rights prevents a private organization from asking someone attending their controlled event not to shout a word? That is just stupid. The Bill of Rights / First Amendment prevents the government from restricting free expression - it does not mean no one can ever ask you to not say anything in any public or private venue. It certainly doesn't protect speech from being frowned upon either.

[BHS_STopping]

One other issue with yelling "ROBOT!" is that it's often difficult to tell if it's directed at you. When people keep shouting it, you look around and you don't see any robots coming your way most of the time. So eventually you start to ignore it. This completely defeats the purpose of alerting people around you, similar to crying "wolf" over and over again.

I still have yet to see anybody prove why saying "Excuse us" is any less effective than shouting "Robot!" Until someone can argue this, I think most of us here firmly stand where we are.

[BrendanB]

I too am very against the yelling of the term, "robot". This practice of yelling in the pits is not only obnoxious but it is completely unprofessional especially when VIPs, sponsors, and the public are walking around. A quieter pit is area is great for the public and it is great for teams. I know my stress level goes down when the pits are quiet.

For the past three years on 3467 we use the same system many teams use: one person in front politely and quietly asking bystanders to move. Even in the most crowded events such as GSR it works amazing, never had a problem.

FIRST, please change this!

[dag0620]

While serving as an ambassador this weekend at CTR, I was giving a tour and teams were yelling Robot, and kept yelling it louder and louder while I attempted to move the group of guests I was taking on a tour over. Needless to guests had commented to me they were not happy.

I've always been against yelling ROBOT, but after this weekend, I strongly feel this needs to stop, now, period.

[Tetraman]

Lets stick it in the rule book, next to the part where you can't save seats at the venues. I'm sure everyone will follow the rule then.

I really think that a Limit for the number of students from a team is needed for the pits, but enforcing it would be a nightmare. You need to allow for students to wander the pits and see all of the teams, as well as for parents of students. I just don't know how to go about it - and most likely neither does FIRST, which is why you don't see a limit or any kind of answer to this problem.

And I ask again, where is the letter to FIRST that we are signing?

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Tetraman

Lets stick it in the rule book, next to the part where you can't save seats at the venues. I'm sure everyone will follow the rule then.

I really think that a Limit for the number of students from a team is needed for the pits, but enforcing it would be a nightmare. You need to allow for students to wander the pits and see all of the teams, as well as for parents of students. I just don't know how to go about it - and most likely neither does FIRST, which is why you don't see a limit or any kind of answer to this problem.

I'd argue a good first step would be to stop having the Green Shirts waste their time forcing safe and professional teams to yell "ROBOT!" and start using it to enforce everyone de-crowding and staying in their pit area. I'm willing to bet crowdedness will do go a lot if the safety guys really made it their priority and put it visibly as one of the top safety award considerations (as well it should be).

Originally Posted by Tetraman

And I ask again, where is the letter to FIRST that we are signing?

I think it's the Change petition? Does that work? Doesn't seem to have as many signers as the thread, though.

[NXTGeek]

I haven't heard it nearly as much as I used to. In 2011 Championship, there were of course robots EVERYWHERE. So every other person was screaming "ROBOT!!!!". Yeah, ok.... *raising hand*

[kjohnson]

Originally Posted by Siri

I think it's the Change petition? Does that work? Doesn't seem to have as many signers as the thread, though.

Yep, I talked with sanddrag before creating this as to not hijack his thread. Things tend to be overlooked when people don't read the entire thread:

Petition to FIRST to stop encouraging teams to shout "Robot!"

[Tetraman]

Originally Posted by nukemknight

Yep, I talked with sanddrag before creating this as to not hijack his thread. Things tend to be overlooked when people don't read the entire thread:

Petition to FIRST to stop encouraging teams to shout "Robot!"

I'd rather sign a letter being sent to FIRST Headquarters, rather than an internet petition. I feel that FIRST may not even be aware of the issue, and sending a letter addressing the concerns and asking for action is a lot more convincing.

Or maybe even ask Frank to read up on this thread would be just as good since we have all "signed" our support already.

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by Doc Wu

I have more than once raised an eyebrow to things said by some of the Safety Advisors. The ones who are actually from UL are usually pretty good, but I wonder about the qualifications of some of the others.
<snip>

I directly confronted a safety advisor who ordered my student to wear gloves while operating a drill press. I told my student to stop work, but not put gloves on. Then asked the safety advisor to send the lead safety advisor to our pit to explain how wearing gloves was in any way safe around a drill press. The original safety advisor returned a few minutes later and apologized. I wouldn't want a student to lose a hand by having the glove get wrapped into the drill. I would hope safety advisors are correctly briefed on important issues and not on how to create more chaos in the pits.

Something has to be done to reduce the number of "lookie-loos" in the pits, particularly on Sat morning. Teams are already stressed with their final qual matches, alliance selection negotiations, final inspections, watching the team standings displays, etc. Safety should be clearing access in the pit rows by limiting numbers of visitors and dispersing crowds between queuing, inspection and the pits. In Inland Empire, the primary access aisle had to accommodate 44 of the 49 teams. The aisle to queuing ran past pit admin, spare parts, and a couple of monitors showing matches and standings. It was a traffic nightmare. Safety's focus should have been to keep aisles as clear as possible without a chorus of "ROBOT!" "ROBOT!" "ROBOT!" to add to the din.

I voted on the change.org site and am fully supportive of sanddrag's stance.

[brrian27]

I don't want to get in any heated debates or anything, I'm just respectfully giving my opinion. Is yelling robot really this big of an issue? If you find the need to yell it, go ahead, if not that's fine too. Obviously be polite, i.e. don't yell every two seconds and if some don't here you politely say excuse me or whatever. But in general yelling robot is an effective system. Often teams need to get too and from matches fast so they can make schedule, fix problems, and perform necessary operations. I don't see this as a large issue.

[kjohnson]

Originally Posted by Tetraman

I'd rather sign a letter being sent to FIRST Headquarters, rather than an internet petition.

How would you suggest we gather everyone together to sign a physical letter, supposing that we want to get this to FIRST before the Championship?

[MrJohnston]

I do not believe that the primary issue is "to yell or not to yell." Rather, it is an issue of space.

Really, the pit area should be large enough to allow for a robots-only lane. In Seattle this weekend, there were times when walking through the pits (withour without a robot in tow!) was difficult. At times, we were working to support a rookie team half-way across the pit area from us and needed to transport drills, hacksaws and long pieces of L-Channel. It really was not safe to do so through that mob.

One of the main goals of FIRST is to promote technology and we like to do so by inviting the public. In doing so, we should have the space to accommodate the guests - without running them over with robots in a rush to get into queue.