Petition to end the shouting of ROBOT

[GreyingJay]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

Nothing, but it's fewer syllables and naively projecting my own standards onto other people I don't see why anyone would care much one way or the other.

I openly admit that I don't understand a lot of social ritual, though, so it's entirely possible that I'm way out of the ordinary in not caring. But from my (admittedly biased) sampling of other people at competition, I've never met anyone else who feels otherwise.

The problem is that the shouting of "Robot!" has pass from a safety awareness imperative ("excuse me, coming through, you need to move out of the way") to part of FRC culture ("When someone says 'Robot', everybody else should yell 'Robot' too! As loud as you can! Whee, this is fun!!!")

If your cart is rolling down the aisle and someone from your team is walking in front of it, gently shouting "Robot! Robot!", this is useful information to work with. I can hear the voice and determine where it's coming from and how close I am to it. If I hear that the voice is very close to me, I surmise that the robot is also very close to me and I move out of the way. This is how it is supposed to work.

Instead, here's what actually happens: Your cart is rolling down the aisle. Everyone in your team, including the people behind the cart, is yelling "Robot!" People in the pits to your left and right hear you say "Robot!" and they too yell "Robot!" Any spectator nearby joins the chorus because, hey, it's fun and I think it's what I'm supposed to do.

So I hear a loud chorus and echoes of "Robot! Robot! Robot!" coming from all different directions. I hear this multiple times throughout the day as every team passes through. Is the robot close to me? Am I in the way? I can't even tell. 99% of the time, it's probably not, therefore I don't bother moving out the way, or even looking up.

It's like those car alarms you hear go off in the parking lot. Does anyone go up to look? Does anyone call the police? No, because you become desensitized to it.