Re: Near-death experiences or injuries during build season?
 

Happened to me two days ago... Hazardous metal 'keychain' ring on a drill press chuck key... Piece of the metal ring sticking out and as I go to use the key, the piece sticking out dives into my pointer finger all the way down to the bone. Thankfully it wasn't rusty.

Re: Near-death experiences or injuries during build season?
 

This didn't happen to me, but to someone else on my team.
We had assigned one of our sophomores to start cutting wood for the bumpers. Her tool of choice was a handheld jigsaw. She wasn't wearing safety glasses, despite the fact that the safety captain was standing right next to her.

I'm sure you're expecting something to come flying out of somewhere right now... ::ouch::

Thankfully, she didn't have to learn to wear safety glasses the hard way, but her untied hair did get stuck in the jigsaw motor. :ahh: She luckily escaped unscathed (minus some hair). This should serve as a reminder to keep all long/loose items like hair, jewelry, clothes, headphones tied back or out of the way.

Re: Near-death experiences or injuries during build season?
 

Definitely doesn't qualify as "near-death," but one time while drilling through an axel for a prototype kicker (during breakaway), the drill bit shattered. If I recall correctly, it was an 1/8" bit, and I must have been applying much more pressure then I realized. 3 different pieces of the bit hacked their way though 3 different fingers before sticking themselves into the palm of my hand. ::ouch::

Ok, probably not as bad as I made it sound, but it really helped remind me to be more careful after that. :o

Re: Near-death experiences or injuries during build season?
 

Almost fell out of my chair in the CAD room once.

Re: Near-death experiences or injuries during build season?
 

I took a hit to the head from a robot arm section that got loose at a regional.

I happened to be wearing a hard hat, so nothing bad happened to me. (And that section was PVC.)

Re: Near-death experiences or injuries during build season?
 

I almost had a pile of heavy C++ code fall on me once. Fortunately, I got out of the way in time. :] ;)

Re: Near-death experiences or injuries during build season?
 

Not an event that involved our team directly, but (rumor has it) a shop where we worked for a few years had an employee die when a chuck key got left in one of the high-power lathes.

One of my friends also had a lathe chuck come loose, again on one of the high-powered lathes at the same shop. The part guard kept the 50lb chuck from running him over. A post-mortem by the shop's lead tech found that the chuck was faulty.

Re: Near-death experiences or injuries during build season?
 

Ah, the dangers of being a programmer.


My friends laptop is a piece of *$#%, despite the fact that is has an i7 even though it is 1.5 years old. It is electrically unsound, so if we touch him while he uses the trackpad, he will be shocked.

I'm sure it hurts, as the sound was quite audible, but wow was that a hilarious day.

Re: Near-death experiences or injuries during build season?
 

Us poor CAD teams :( RIP...

Re: Near-death experiences or injuries during build season?
 

In my rookie year we were bending sheet metal with an enormous press and the rookie I was working with drooped the iron handle on my head and gave me a concussion worse then any head injury i got from playing football.

Re: Near-death experiences or injuries during build season?
 

Not exactly exciting but I've stapled my fair share of fingers to the back of bumpers. Oh man, I've poured my blood, sweat, and tears into robotics and I'll never regret it!

Re: Near-death experiences or injuries during build season?
 

Not quite a Near Death experience, but I've got 2 stories:
Both of them are from 2010: and our mentor was bent sanding a strip of aluminum for our robot. It slipped from his hand, took a round on the belt sander, and shot straight up into the ceiling. I think it's still hanging from there today...
The other one would be that if you're taking video of a robot kicking an object, and said object gets bigger, that object is most likely speeding towards your face. Do yourself a favor and duck.

Re: Near-death experiences or injuries during build season?
 

I was milling some lightning holes in a frame piece when the bit broke and flew by my face, and cutting metal on a band saw when the blade broke and whipped me in the neck. :ahh:

Re: Near-death experiences or injuries during build season?
 

Cable on winch in breakaway was caught up on a bolt, I tried to wiggle the floating bot while grabbing the cable to get it off the bolt during practice. End result, cable whipped back really fast and took a small chunk out of my thumb.

Re: Near-death experiences or injuries during build season?
 

That is most of the stories, however when the team coach lets you ride a robot to test the effect of weight addition and then try to balance on the 2012 ramp, only to see the robot tip and fall on the student.

Sometime the urge to do something stupid like that just overwhelms the best of us, especially when several students are pressing for it.