At TVR, the head ref told us we should wave our arms dramatically. If the curtains were down, step into the player station because you are not allowed to be there at the start of the match.
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Go to the human player station on the scoring table side of the field (where you’re visible) and get the attention of the ref on that end. They’re very close to the human player station and can much more easily get the attention of the FTA by simply walking over to them at the scoring table. It also gets official notice of something being wrong, so even if the match starts you have good grounds for a replay later on.
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I would say, Evaluate the issue. If it warrants needing an FTA and he is not responding to you, then bang the crap out of the glass. If the HR gets mad, tell him that the FTA needs to pay better attention.
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I hope this is a joke. There’s no circumstance in which one should ever “bang the crap out of the glass,” even if they are struggling to get the FTA’s attention. Also, that “justification” is plainly rude and I doubt most refs will allow you any kind of leniency after you rudely criticize one of their fellow volunteers. That was a joke, right?
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Pretty sure the original question here was about during a match. A thumbs down during a match probably won’t draw attention quickly.
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I remember this being posted in another thread a while back, and the legality/ethics of this are questionable, but if you need them to not start the match, unplugging your driver station laptop will prevent them from starting the match temporarily.
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Probably the better option, That or pressing your E-Stop.
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Pressing your e-stop could very easily just make you e-stopped for the whole match, since it requires a robot restart.
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I never meant this as a rude or mean thing. If I was at a job that required me to be paying attention at all times or someone could be hurt or killed, Wouldn’t you want me being alert at all times?
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It’s against the rules to bang on the glass this year for very important safety reasons regarding the sandstorm blinds. Not only is banging on it irresponsible, but can cause someone to get hurt.
The FTAs usually check each alliance before a thumbs-up to start the match. If an issue comes up after that, get your human player on the scoring table side to signal the FTAs attention, since we’re usually checking around that area while starting the match since we can’t see past the sandstorm blinds. At worst, you’ll get the attention of a nearby field reset person / scorer / ref.
For something like a Joystick fault, you can unplug your Ethernet until the FTA comes and sees you, since that bars the start match button from being pressed (just don’t abuse this for minor problems, of course). But please, DO NOT E-Stop your robot, E-Stops are sticky and require a lot more effort to clear.
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This instance happened during a match not before
I’m not sure what instance you’re referring to.
They’re talking about the OP of the thread (which is theirs). It’s true, getting the attention of the FTA during a match can be a real crapshoot situation. Doing it without banging on the glass can cost really previous in-match time that not many posts are addressing. There’s no perfect fix to this, and it is a real problem I’d like to see handled if the blinds stay around. Teams, especially rookies, cdn benefit from much clearer guidance than (at least some events) are getting.
In terms of stopgap, rehearsing having someone quickly gesture—whistling is great—from the scoring-table side station is probably the best option. As a ref who’s responded to that, I hate seeing comm issues cost matches, and even if it’s resolved the time it takes to get attention can really kill students’ experience when they’re already at their most stressed. I wish people wouldn’t downplay or ignore the in-match aspects there.
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Why not have something like a set of buttons in each driverstation with one of them being “ready for the match” and the other would be a “FTA pls come help” button?
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Inconsolable wailing and gnashing of teeth?
Or a thumbs down and lots of waving.
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I would love to see them do a “Ready/Not Ready” thing that programmers could invoke in code when things aren’t right. (Either a sensor is sensing when it shouldn’t be/should be or a camera is in failure mode or an encoder is not detected.) We had an issue last year where PT didn’t get the refnums (Possibly because PT ran before begin was done) and it caused code to not work properly. This is detectable by seeing a mass of errors saying stuff about broken refnums. If we would have had this, I could have detected there was an issue and sent the signal we arent ready.
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We do something similar to this ourselves. We have our robot LEDs blink red on boot until all our cameras for Vision processing are connected and sending data. Once everything is good, the LEDs display a rainbow pattern until the match starts.
It’s a quick and easy way to see what’s going on without looking at our prints in the driver station console. Often, we have one of our team members stay on the field until the lights display a rainbow pattern when setting up the robot.
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I think it was 2521 SERT who threw a screen on the side of their robot with a list of things on it, if it was working it was green, if not red. Very visible and easy to see
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Signal flare?
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Surprised no one has suggested this yet: bang on the loading station glass. Only illegal to bang on the player station.
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