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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Run to the scoring side edge of the player station, lean out, wave and holler something about “FTA, FTA, FTA!”
The volunteer relay should get the FTA’s attention in a hurry.
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I like it, but it’d need to be coupled with something else here because as a ref I totally would not have gotten this beforehand. I’m used to people banging on loading stations to reposition their own team, to dislodge a game piece (some years), to signal another alliance partner. But to signal a player station issue? Nah no way, that happens at the player station glass (my primeval FIRST brain tells me). I mean do it enough and you’d wake me up, but it wasn’t in my ref lexicon until just now. It’s good. Maybe this is all the remedy/training required if blinds stay around, just to prime that potential connection.
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