A lot of elements go into how teams, and students, experience FIRST. We’ve had a chat about how volunteers, specifically RIs, have an impact on the overall experience. We could likely break down every volunteer role to find examples where things haven’t gone well. In fact, there have been numerous threads about this over the years. With this season being a particularly interesting one having teams with a lot of turnover from their last actual events, it’s a good time to look at how teams impact the experience of those around them. I’m going to share a few anecdotes I’ve experienced over the years in a variety of roles. These anecdotes aren’t representative of the majority. But, we’ve established negative moments tend to last longer and it’s important we consider these kinds of moments that happen when the competitive side takes the lead.
After a particularly close playoff match, the drive coach went to berate their human player for losing the match. As this HP is sheepishly explaining they didn’t get a signal, the coach accepts that response. They turn around, hit the glass to get their driver’s attention, point straight at them, and loudly state “This loss was on you, on you”
In pre-match strategy sessions, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen a conversation that’s essentially “stay out of our way” telling a team to do something away from the primary focus of the game. This was especially bad in the Recycle Rush year. Though, it’s not something unique to that season
I watched a team exploit the benefit of the doubt teams get when taking actions during a game. One of their opponent robots had died in their end game zone. They drove directly into it, made contact, and went back to playing the game. The action was ruled with benefit of the doubt and a foul was called. Oddly enough, it was for contact the opponent robot made with an alliance partner as a result of the bump, not the instigating robot as they were in such a rush to get back to playing they forgot to enter their end game zone to be eligible to draw a penalty. After the pretty obvious attempt to exploit the rule, they went to argue not getting end game points over several matches.
A top-heavy robot was playing defense. This might not have been their best decision. Though, they were a younger team. When they pulled back, their front wheels lifted off the ground and they ended up on top of the bumpers of the robot they were defending. Let’s avoid getting into a debate over who was responsible for them being stuck. They were. The other robot was free to move and could have freed them both. Instead, they saw the referees counting a pin on the defending robot, placed their controls down, and started raising their arm up along with the referee count shouting out “count em up” in their driver station. The only robot that could end the interaction instead made no attempt to play the game and cheered on an extended pin call. This ended up resulting in the other team getting a red card, feeling terrible, and their alliance losing a playoff match by default.
A rather well known team was struggling to connect to the field, regularly. The FTA asked for them to get help and CSAs went to check on them. Upon reaching the pit, they were told by a mentor to “get the f away from our pit.” They hadn’t yet said anything more than “hello” and were there to help ensure the other teams both weren’t sitting and waiting for their matches to start as well as trying to keep things on schedule rather than consistently adding delays to this team’s match.
In one match, a team lost their bumpers and were disabled. The team next to them lost power and weren’t moving. After the match, they chewed out the FTA and FTAA for “disabling” them as well as their partner and demanded a replay. When CSAs followed them to their pit, several adult mentors started by scolding the CSAs the moment they got there for the result of the match and stating their clear expectations of advocating for a replay. The CSA responding couldn’t work with the kids to talk through how to troubleshoot the robot because they were trapped in the crosshair of the mentors. The students quietly went about their post-match activities until they were stopped and asked to bring the battery back. The terminal was loose enough it was evident even though taped. When the tape was removed, the gap was seen and the team was able to start working to correct the issue so they wouldn’t have the same issue in later matches.
After a match in which a team had an inconsistent video feed, they went to ask for a replay and were told they were the only team with that issue so they wanted to troubleshoot before calling it a field problem. Their response was to tell the FTAs “I want to talk to someone from FIRST and someone that knows what they’re talking about.” They had been starving their bandwidth sending excessive console communication and that took priority over their images.
I’m sure we’ve all lost count of how many times coaches have chewed out other teams during matches. This seems to be especially bad when teams bring student coaches to their driver station. We could likely create a thread JUST about these stories.
We all have a role to play in the experience for our teams, other teams, and the volunteer base that show up to these events. It’s often easier to look at how other roles impact the experience. I encourage folks to consider how their actions impact those around them and channel the best of all of us.
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