Petition to end the shouting of ROBOT

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

But it's often the case that a single "Robot!" effectively gets people to look up, notice you, and clear out of the way. I observed this several times at DC, and didn't see anyone gravely harmed or offput by the lack of manners. So I have a hard time seeing the need to not do it.

A single "Robot!" shouted by the person pushing the cart is coming from the wrong place. In order to warn the ones in front of the cart it has to be very loud. It gets the attention of a lot of people. The majority of those people are not in the way. Such an action adds a lot more noise than it does safety.

The person doing the warning should be in front of the robot, not behind it. With that arrangement, the volume required to alert the people who need to be alerted should not need to rise to the level of a shout. Anyone in the way who doesn't react to a loudly spoken "excuse us, robot coming through, please watch out" is going to be close enough for the vanguard to touch the person on the shoulder or arm and get their attention without shouting.

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

A single "Robot!" shouted by the person pushing the cart is coming from the wrong place. In order to warn the ones in front of the cart it has to be very loud. It gets the attention of a lot of people. The majority of those people are not in the way. Such an action adds a lot more noise than it does safety.

The person doing the warning should be in front of the robot, not behind it. With that arrangement, the volume required to alert the people who need to be alerted should not need to rise to the level of a shout. Anyone in the way who doesn't react to a loudly spoken "excuse us, robot coming through, please watch out" is going to be close enough for the vanguard to touch the person on the shoulder or arm and get their attention without shouting.

^

Shouting robot loudly is going to get the attention of more people than it needs to. Possibly taking their attention away from something that might have been more important than a robot that isn't near them.

[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.

[TheOtherGuy]

Originally Posted by TheBoulderite

At Arizona North this last weekend, I don't think I heard anyone yell robot once. So, there is hope!

Quoted for truth, I don't recall hearing it once either. Maybe it was the venue size, hopefully it was the people

[NShep98]

Originally Posted by GreyingJay

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 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.

This is how my team handles it. We have one person, a drive team member, who is known for yelling out "robot". He does it at what I would call a reasonable volume, and only when there is a significant blockage in front of us where multiple people need to move at once. He is usually behind the cart, but we do have people in front just in case people don't move so we don't run into them.

Personally I feel that if someone were to come up and ask us to stop, we would, but even this past weekend no one seemed to mind one bit, and would generally move to the side and go back to their business, so I don't see much harm.

Everybody around screaming at the top of their lungs over and over again all day is another story entirely.