Does anyone have information about Accessibility options for the Game Manual (FTC or FRC)?
I’m not asking about access. I know where it is posted online. I also know how to get to archived copies of game manuals. My teams have no troubles accessing the Game Manuals. This is more like the Accessibility features on your smartphone or in your computer’s settings.
Everything we do is rooted in the Game Manual. How many times have you heard “read the game manual?” I know I’ve said it countless times. I’ve even seen on Chief Delphi, “Read the FIRST Manual.”
I’ve mentored a number of students with dyslexia. They struggle to get through the manual and understand the layers to it the way our really good veteran team members and strategy mentors can. Are there copies of the manual in dyslexia-friendly fonts like Dyslexie Font (https://www.dyslexiefont.com)?
It seems like FIRST would be sensitive to the needs of people with dyslexia given that Dean Kamen has openly talked about the challenges he had in school.
I’ve also mentored students with severe visual impairment. One of the best programmers I knew was legally blind. He used the Accessibility features on his computer to help him read the code. Are there large print versions of the Game Manuals?
I also know a number of great machinist and fabrication students who are below grade level with reading comprehension. I love having them on the team because of the quality of the build work. Every time the team or a guest speaker talks about reading the game manual, I cringe for them. Maybe a chaptered audio book version of the Game Manual would help these students feel comfortable in their respective FIRST Program.
I’m sure I’ve missed some other individual situations that make it hard to understand the Game Manual and other resources. Every one of the individuals I’m thinking about based on the generalized descriptions above are great contributors to the team. They can benefit from participation in FIRST as much as students without these challenges.
I would love to see if others in this community have faced similar challenges with including these students. What techniques and resources have you used that have helped keep folks engaged with the program?
I’m not aware of any particular options for any accessibility options. I’m going to suggest contacting Fiona (Team Experience Specialist) (or maybe @Collin_Fultz still reads CD) as that sounds like something that would probably best be handled by HQ.
I can’t say that I’ve specifically encountered such challenges, so I can’t comment on assistive resources.
One thing that might help with using different fonts or screen readers is the HTML Manual. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s an easy way to access it from the FIRST website (the easiest way to reach it without having the link is to use inspect element in the Q&A’s manual page for some reason) and images don’t have alt text, but I hope this can help.
The manual has never really done the best job of condensing information down to make it easily digestible unfortunately. For example I wish things like height/perimeter/frame extension limits were all in a table so I don’t have scrounge around to find those things in 3 different places.
A couple years ago (2019 I believe), some WFA recipients read the game manual aloud, with some personal notes, and released the recording on SoundCloud. Perhaps they may be interested in doing that again sometime?
We usually have a group of mentors and students read the game manual aloud during kickoff. It works pretty well for students who have trouble focusing or new students who could use some help interpreting rules as well.
On our team everyone has to read the manual in some way before they can participate in the rest of kickoff weekend, so we have a block of time for everyone to either read quietly on their own or read as a group in another room.
While I’m perpetually signing myself up for more things than I have time for, I’d be very down for helping make “audiobook game manual”. Maybe in 2024?
One thing I’d be interested in learning - what would be most helpful? just reading the manual straight through, word for word? Or perhaps with some intonation, comment interjections… would it be useful for me to fully understand it myself before speaking, or would students prefer to hear me verbalize my own discovery process?
More broadly… there will be a lot of times in life when you’ll get a big document tossed on your desk and be told “the answer is in there, go find it”. Are there tools or techniques or things that could be taught to solve the problem more generally than just for the FRC game manual?
And similar question for myself… when someone asks a GM-specific question, I do tend to be one of those people who tries to remind them to read and understand it. I do this because I’ve been burned by not doing so in the past - there’s a lot in there, and just because you think you have your question answered isn’t a great indicator you haven’t missed something else. Would pointing to specific sections be better? Or just letting the question sit, rather than reminding folks about reading?
Here is the aforementioned SoundCloud recording. As you can see (hear?), they only read Sections 5-9, so this was Game Rules only. No info about Arena, Robot construction, or Tournament rules included. Played at 1x speed, it’s about an hour and fifteen minutes long.
In the 2022 Manual (and I think it’s been in there in general in recent years), in section 1.8 “Translations & Other Versions”, it says:
A text-based English version can be provided only for use with assistive devices and not for redistribution. For more information, please contact the FIRST Robotics Competition Team Experience Specialist at [email protected].
I’d venture the reason they don’t just post the link to text-only and translated copies is that they need to ensure that there aren’t out-of-date copies floating around and if they need to maintain updated copies of many versions, it is likely updates would be slower to publish. I also think HQ probably prefers that people who can view the manual as written do so, and that a text only copy is only used by those who need it – since there are visualizations in the manual that will be helpful to those who can see it.
I do think, however, they could make that snippet available more readily, like next to the link to download the manual. I’d bet an email to the team advocate inbox can make some progress in that arena.
Thanks. I guess I need to read the manual better myself.
I’ve recently been supporting a local FTC team. I double checked and I didn’t see a similar statement in that manual. I’m going to reach out to this address and get more information about options for FTC teams as well.