Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

Has anyone noticed how funny it is that the safety award has a pretty sharp point? Honestly, I cannot understand why they don't sand that down or something...
The most serious accident, and the only one of three we have ever had (in two years), happened to me of all people. I was cutting a piece of PVC pipe with a hacksaw. Blade wasn't tensioned right, it jumped out of the cut, and then proceed to slice through my left thumb about an eight of an inch deep... :ahh: the worst that our machinist mentor said for one week I would not be able to use any power tools in his shop. Aw, man... :( The nesxt day a new rule was made that if you are doing any sawing (circular/reciprocating/jig/miter/band/hand/hack saw), you will wear leather gloves. If they do not, then I bite their heads off.

The irony of this story? I am the safety captain. :o

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

My motto: "That's why God gave us coagulation." :D

P.S. FYI, I have now been in Boy Scouts for eleven years. Finger nicks, along with most other minor injuries, no longer phase me. I know from experience that they will all (eventually) heal.

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

gloves=!!!!!!!!VERY BAD!!!!!!!!!!! (VERY BIG AND CONSPICOUS BAD)

only when using hand tools should you wear gloves
when working with power tools, you should never wear gloves, because if they get caught in a moving part, it will rip your hand off :eek:

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

It's not a bad idea for handsaws, but I would NEVER wear gloves around power tools that cut. The last thing I want is for a leather glove to bind on a table saw blade or router bit and pull my hand into the cutting edge. Ask a shop teacher, but I don't think any experienced person recommends wearing gloves around stationary cutting tools.

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

I am the programmer on my team, and basically i was the one in control of the dongle. Well we were prototyping with the CMUcam and basically it was supposed to go really fast towards the light if the light was far away. Basically while i was holding onto the dongle, out mentor had the light on a cart and was standing a couple of feet from the robot (so the robot should go slowly towards him). I flipped the dongle out of disable and the camera found the light coming through the windows behind our mentor, and just plain ran our cart over. Thankfully I hit the disable switch before the robot reached our mentor who froze in his place.

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

Does running over your foot with a cart that is about 350lbs with tools + a 130lb robot couunt? (actually...me, the HP, the coach, and the other driver did over the course of the weekend)

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

our battery came unplugged in the curie quaterfinals, getting beat by the highest score ever seen in aim high :(

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

I got hit in the face 2 minutes ago by a flying piece of nylon space that broke off in the lathe. Thank FIRST for safety goggles. Still got a nasty stinging sensation in my face.

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

team 1566 injuries
 

Just some bumps and bruises this year nothing big yet... its bound to happen with some people we have here.... lets hope not though:yikes: :D
so far I'm one of the main people who is part of safety we have to kinda yell at people to wear their goggles... i guess they will learn their lesson when the time comes and they get hurt doing something....:rolleyes:

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

Well, I broached my thumb today . . . I now have a nice little 1/8" chunk out of my left thumb. There was more blood than I would've thought. 'Twas kinda gross. :P

Moral of the story? Pay attention while broaching keyways. :cool:

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

I can't remember all the injuries. I just know that whenever we work on the drive train late at night, we end up with all of these mysterious cuts, blood and grease on our hands. My hands have almost one scar per square inch by now, just from two years of late night chain adjusting and competitions.

My most notable injury was when our 2005 bot still worked and we let a non-member drive it at a recruitment demo. He started spinning with a heavy PVC tetra, copying our competition driver, and didn't raise the arm high enough. The tetra flew off, missed my best friend, and hit me square on the mouth, leaving a bruise for a week. We have never let a non-member drive with tetras since. Poof balls and ringers, yes. Tetras, no.

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

Oh, I remember it so well. It was last year; he has since graduated, but I was actually building something else at the time and only got to see the end result. He did stop by earlier in the season and inquire how things were going. Ironically enough, the '05 robot is actually the one in the background.

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

got cut by metal, and a couple of bruises but nothing big

Robot related? Not really- but...
 

We did have an injury today. Apparently a student slipped outside in the ice and fell backwards while carrying a pizza.

Fortunately a number of other students witnessed the injury and rendered first aid- stabilizing the patient, assessing the damage, preventing further trauma, and finally, after determining the patient was OK, getting the patient up off the ground.

Into the team room they came, placing the immobilized victim on a table for further evaluation of the mentors. The mentors pronounced "Safe" and we all dug in to eat the pizza before it got any colder. There was some cheese damage to the top of the box but we let the vegetarian scrape it off.

About halfway through the students remembered Erik was still outside on the ground, so they went and brought him in too. A couple of Vault Cola's later and he was fine.

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

Well, funnily enough we have a phrase on our team; "pulling a Mladen". For example, I came close to losing a kidney with a jigsaw, and said "I almost just pulled a Mladen".

Last year, Mladen was using the drill press on a strip of steel, probably about 1mm thick, and instead of clamping it down deciding to hold on to it with bare hands. Well, the bit ripped the sheet out of his hand...or should I say through it? He came out with a significant amount of blood coming from his hands, having nearly severed two or three of his fingers. We still drill holes in sheet metal without vices for some reason...:confused:

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

I have seen this happen, and it is not a pretty sight.

I almost did it once myself.

Hopefully she will recover fine.

- Bochek

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

Let me set the scene for you. A couple days into build season 1741 is working on an ingenious design to pickup the ball using a high volume vacuum. One of the captains (we have two) is using a makeshift cup made with about four inches of the top of a 5 gallon bucket and plywood plate to pick up the ball with an (extremely underpowered) 12 volt portable vacuum. Captain lifts ball vertically with the cup. No problem right? right. he then tries pivoting the ball up using the vacuum and at about forty five degrees from vertical he loses vacuum and the ball pops off. Well remember that whole for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction thing? The reaction in this case was him smacking himself with the plywood edge on the cup in his forehead. He hit himself hard enough that it made a cut in his forehead and he fell over.

I (because of the three stooges nature of the incident) began laughing hysterically and felt absolutely awful later on. It's too bad we don't have a video because it would be one of those things that you watch over and over and never cease to laugh when you see it.

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

It wasn't serious, but last year one of our team members (you know who you are, Stolte) drove the robot into my shins. We hadn't made bumpers yet and the temporary electrical board extended outside the chassis, so I had scraped, blackish-blue shins for a week or two.

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

Resurrecting this thread with my own stupidity.

I was drilling some aluminium angle pieces for a quick mockup of our field. Had a hand-held dewalt power drill. My hair wasn't pulled back. Suddenly the power drill disappeared from my vision and the side of my head really, really hurt. Guess what happened?

To make things worse, I figured "put the drill in reverse and back it out slowly and there should be no issues". Finger twitches and the drill ends up jerking and hitting me in the head... again.

Took about 10 minutes for two of my teammates to get as much of my hair untangled as they could and cut the rest.

I ended up with two small open wounds on my left wrist (presumably where I had scraped against the vice) and a decently sized bald patch on the side of my head. The drill just ripped the hair clean out.


Previously mentioned drill-hair is now in a bag in our shop with one of my quotes ("If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is") written on it and it's hanging on the wall.

It was a good thing I had my safety glasses on -- upon further inspection, the drill bit nicked the lens right in front of my eye.

I had my hair pulled back constantly for the next few weeks and didn't go back into the shop for more than 5 or 10 minutes after that this year. Yes, it was THAT scary.

The moral of the story is (other than 'I am an idiot', anyways) make sure your hair is pulled back. always.

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

we were prototyping a ball-lift mechanism and needed to keep some string centered, so i suggested 16-gauge steel wire (art class stuff)...

later, while we were working, i was cutting a length of the wire off the spool, and it whipped back and tore my hand...

i was bleeding for a little bit, but luckily enough, it missed any major nerves, so it didn't hurt that bad.

i now have a permanent scar on the back of my hand, but that still hasn't convinced me to wear gloves in the shop...

however, i have good reason:

at the local community college, where i learned machine shop skills, one of the students (college) was wearing gloves while working on a lathe, and when he reached in to brush away a burr, it grabbed his hand and tore off three fingers.

now, he has a thumb and pinky, but no index, middle or ring finger.

he was rushed to the hospital, but they couldn't do anything since his gloves were covered in so much grease and dirt.

moral of the story:

NEVER wear gloves!!! (At PCC (the community college) you are now banned from wearing gloves unless you are changing a band saw blade.)

i know too many people with missing fingers to wear gloves, or brush away burrs with the machine running (i usually use burr-breaking cutters)

-Z

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

After getting my hair caught in a power drill, I've become increasingly more afraid of the lathe.

A power drill you can stop quickly.

A lathe, you can't.

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

In 2007 I was cutting a strip of 1/16 aluminum on the table saw. It got wedged between the fence and table, and kicked back. It hit me near the front pocket of my jeans (way too close...), cut through, bounced off me, and hit a student in the leg, where it also drew bit of blood. Other than a cut, large bump, and an ugly bruise, no permanent damage was done.

I saved the mangled piece of aluminum for safety show & tell.

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

the first day of our 2008 build season(monday after the kickoff)
We were cleaning and rearanging our basement/shop and someone(zach) unbolted the vice from the table without telling anyone-and I went to move the table and the vice fell off nearly "removing" my foot from my leg

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

Back in '07, it was myself and Jon, the team captain in the shop, and he was drilling a hole on the robot with a power drill. The bit jumped and grabbed his Tshirt, wrapping it up like spaghetti. After he got the bit out of his shirt, he went around and shook everybody's hand for just being there. I think he was a little drifty after the almost-incident.

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

Our season went pretty smoothly in general in terms of safety, but I somehow managed to give myself a nasty cut from a polycord QuickConnect piece. The gash didn't go away for weeks.

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

As usual, you can find traces of my blood on the drive train. Chains are SUCH a pain.

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

The team captain accidentally dropped a recently sharpened 1 inch endmill with the chuck on his foot it sliced through his pants, sock and ended up making a nice gash in his foot. He kept working until his parents (who are doctors) showed up and used some "glue stitch" to patch him up.

and i've cut, scratched and scraped myself almost once a day (most painfully I missed with the di-burring tool and sliced my middle finger) It happened so many times that we needed to buy more band-aids. :|

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

we made it through the build season with the only injury of note being our electrical mentor slicing open his finger striping wire.

Then i sliced open my fingers moving regolith on a clean up day.

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

Last season I was making the bumpers for the robot, and we were using an industrial hot glue gun to stick the noodle to the plywood. Because it was used industrial, the glue was heated by a flame, and the glue gun had been on for a good period of time. While moving a bumper out of my way, the glue dripped off the bumper and onto my pinkie finger :ahh: . It was so hot I had to let the glue that was on my finger cool off before I could do anything otherwise I would have burned myself again. I ended up with a nice blister on the outside of my finger. It took a while to heal because ripped of the blister right after I burned myself because it hurt so bad, which caused it to ooze for the next week.

Other than that nothing bad has happened (just the usual cuts and bruises) besides a student getting his hair wrapped in a drill.

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

I am pretty sure that I got the worst injury on the team, and all it was was a small cut on my knuckle.

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

For some weird reasons our practice robot's PWMs were outputting very high voltages. This guy just wanted to touch the pins and he got a small piece of the pin embedded in his finger and the pin was completely burned! :O Luckily he was okay.

Re: were there robot related injuries on your team?
 

one of the girls on our team has an arrow shaped scar on her arm from a burn. there have been others but that was the coolest.