safety
 

One of our members became safety officer and they want to know what you think is the responsibility of the safety officer.

Re: safety
 

Everyone is responsible for safety but as far as at competitions read the FIRST Safety Manual.

We are requiring everyone who wants to work our pits or be on the drive team pass the OSHA Industrial Safety test this year.

Re: safety
 

I would recommend that your safety captain look over everything that is on this page: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...deo-and-manual

In addition, at competitions there is usually a safety meeting in which a member of each team goes and listens to the Safety Advisors. It probably would be beneficial to designate him as the person to go attend.

Re: safety
 

I was safety captain for my team. I definately suggest looking and READING the FIRST Safety manual throughly. Also what i did was look at some safety methods used in the industry. If they need any help, tell them they are free to contact me and i would be glad to help! :) :)

Re: safety
 

As a former UL Safety Adviser at a few regionals let me say that's the wrong question.

The right question is what is the authority of the safety officer/captain.

If you want to know what the UL safety advisers are looking for, they're looking for teams that have gone beyond reading the safety manual and buying a box of baking soda. They're looking for evidence of an actual safety culture within the team and that's demonstrated as much or more by actions than by signs.

One of those biggest signs of a culture of safety is that your safety officer can tell me about when she (it's far too often a freshman girl who didn't know she was safety officer until that morning) intervened when another team member of mentor engaged in unsafe behavior.

Which brings me back around to my point, the difference between responsibility and authority. You can make someone "responsible" for safety, but unless you've given them authority to change team culture and behavior you haven't done anything.

And that authority, more than any prepared book, tests you require team members to take or rules is what demonstrates a real proactive culture of safety.

Re: safety
 

The first step is always to read the Safety Manual from UL for the current year, it contains what you need to form the basics of a safety program if there is not already a team program in place.

I am a former safety captain of my team, and we have won the Championship award twice and many regional safety awards as well. If you would like, I would be happy to help explain how our team's program works and give your captain tips on creating and improving a sustainable safety program and culture within your team.

The safety captain does more than just wear the green button. I see many teams just pass off the responsibility to the freshman who doesn't seem to have anything else to do. It is VERY important that your team has not just one person in charge of safety, but that every team member helps exude a culture of safe practices at all times, whether or not a judge is watching. The safety captain should be an expert in the field and make it his/her mission to bring everyone on the team up to his/her knowledge level throughout the build season with a rigorous training program, as well as be able to enforce their team's practices and guidelines throughout the season and competition.

It is also their responsibility to continuously expand the program. No-one is perfect from the start, and no-one is perfect years later meaning there is ALWAYS room for improvement. The safety captain should never strive to do just what is in the UL manual, that is merely a skeleton set of rules that MUST be enforced for the minimum level of safety. That is what they expect all teams to have in place. A good team will have a program that rivals and even surpasses that of a real-life manufacturing facility. In order to improve, your captain should go and talk to real-life safety advisers in the field, have them review your program and suggest modifications and improvements. People in industry who do safety for a living will know what new regulations are be enforced, new standards being released, and will help you build your program. Practices like LOTO (Lock-Out Tag-Out), 5's (my personal favorite), and Lean Manufacturing are good places to start looking.

You are using industrial-grade machinery and will need an industrial-grade safety program to match. It is not worth a team member permanently injured for a mistake they made in a short season of FRC that could have been prevented with proper training and recognition of hazards. For this reason, safety was always a passion of mine while I was on the team and this passion through the years in not only our safety captains but our entire team is what led to our team becoming one of the forerunners in safety for FIRST robotics.

Once again, I would love to help your new safety captain grow in his/her new role. I remember being a new safety captain many years ago and I have helped many new safety captains since through Chief Delphi and in-person mentoring. Send me a PM if you are interested!



Glad to see you're still in the safety business! I remember helping you out when you were a new safety captain a couple years ago :)

Re: safety
 

As a former safety captain/ trainer for my team. The responsibilities of safety captains are memorizing the FIRST Safety Manual and creating our own manual on rules about safety and tools. During competition, they also have the responsibility of keeping a clean work area and managing batteries. Regulation of behavior and information that comes through the pit area is key.

Re: safety
 

I am also a safety captain for my team, the IgKNIGHTers. When I came on as safety captain last season as a sophomore, we truly did not have much of a safety culture or program in place. I was scrambling to find out more information (I was assigned this task halfway through season) before our first regional in Toronto, but although I read the safety manual, I still felt as though I was lost there. There were too many of my team members in the pit, some people even were putting their safety glasses on their heads, and it was just a mess. We were scolded several times that day by safety officers for unsafe behavior, which is not a great thing to have on your team's reputation.

At our next regional, FLR, I came into it feeling quite a bit more prepared. I had enforced more safe behaviors within my team and was prepared to tell the safety judges a little bit about the changes we had made. However, upon seeing the other teams at the competition (e.g. 3044, who won the Industrial Safety Award there), I realized I had a long way to go before my team could even compete with some of these already established safety cultures.

So, for this season, I have started up many safety initiatives within our team. Working with several mentors, I have presented on general safety tips and am working on presentations about tool use and electrical safety for specific subteams. I have started a better system for our safety glasses so that they don't all get lost, and they are now required in the workroom regardless of if you have glasses or not, even though many complaints have been made about this change. We are in the midst of ordering even more PPE, such as lifting gloves and even toe guards, which were suggested to me by a safety judge at FLR. We are compiling a folder of MSDS files (thank you, team 2062, for your fantastic database). Finally, I am also an official Safety Smart Ambassador through Underwriters Laboratories, which qualifies me to educate kids ages 4-14 about basic safety.

One can clearly tell that I am passionate about safety, and I am even looking into careers in this field when I'm older. My advice, however, is don't overwhelm yourself. Do one thing at a time, addressing issues as they come. The most important part of a safety program is to ensure that no one gets injured during season.

Good luck, and remember, Safety FIRST!

Re: safety
 

Definitely would look to someone like a safety officer not to only have the rules known but to also know the plans involved when things are unsafe.

Re: safety
 

Just in time for the switch to SDS's in June.

Re: safety
 

The new safety captain is working on updating it, but not all the suppliers have updated their documents yet so we're waiting on a few before we can make the switch :rolleyes: I'm glad to hear it's been helpful to teams though! That was a spur-of-the-moment idea I had two years ago and we just threw it all together in a week, hence the site honestly isn't very pretty. Soon after that I graduated however and have had to pass it all on to the new generation.

Re: safety
 

There are many different resources that you could use. I would start with the Safety Manual found on the FIRST webpage. Other FIRST teams usually make up their own and will post them for other teams to use. As Safety Captain you also have to make sure that you relay what you have learned to the rest of your team mates because it takes everyone's effort to keep the work environment a safe one.

Re: safety
 

Yes you were a big help! I passed my safety program onto my brother and still help him once and awhile!::safety::

Re: safety
 

In addition to what's been mentioned above, our Safety Officer uses the Safety Checklist (from the 2015 Safety Manual) to track the team's safe practices throughout each daily build session. At the end of each session she gives the team a rating (which is posted on the wall). The completed checklist is kept in the Safety Binder. Five happy faces in a row earns the team cookies. :)

Also, all of our team members are certified in First Aid, CPR and the use of AED. New members are certified each year.

Re: safety
 

Both the official safety manual and the safety checklist (originals are here) can be found in a mobile friendly format in the new http://frcsafety.net