2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative

[jee7s]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

Honestly, this strikes me as far more obnoxious and unhelpful than the yelling of "Robot!" is in the first place; "Robot!", even if you believe it is suboptimal (for the record, I think it works fine), has a clear use. "Human!" does nothing but add to the noise and confusion. Almost no one is going to have a clear inclination of what is meant when someone shouts "Human!" Pretty much everyone knows what is meant when someone shouts "Robot!"

If you think the shouting of "Robot!" does more harm than good, that's fine. But be reasonable about how you try to convey that point. The action you've described is going to do absolutely nothing to fix the problem; on the contrary, it does nothing but exacerbate the very problems that the critics of "Robot!" point to.

Just to be clear about this, it's not like we go around shouting "Human" every time someone shouts "Robot". It's not even shouted. When we do it, it's a comment directed at the team that's yelling "Robot", not a general comment to everyone within earshot. Yeah, it's a little sarcastic, maybe. But, 9 times out of 10, or maybe even 95 out of 100, we get a chuckle from the team because they know what they are doing is what we have discussed: Safety Theater.

Often, that becomes an icebreaker between our two teams, we get to know each other, and we start reminding other teams to not shout "Robot" all over the place. So, no, we aren't jerks about it. We use the "Human!" content to provoke thought and conversation, and it's been quite successful on those two fronts without the drawbacks you assumed above.

And, BTW, there's PLENTY of ambiguity in "Robot!". It's not clear what people should do when they hear that, particularly to those not familiar with FIRST. Even if it's coupled with a clear indication to get out of the way, that doesn't help much either as people don't usually know where they need to move to get out of the way. This is particularly true if their backs are turned to you, which is when this "Robot" shouting technique is usually employed.

But hey, everything I just said has already been said in other threads. No need to beat this to death.