A Warning to Human Players for safety's sake.
 

At this past weekends UTC regional, there was an incident with a Tetra falling out of the field and onto a human player ending up with the human player taking a trip to the hospital..

This is a warning to all human players, especially those on the pressure pad closest to the field to watch out for falling tetra's from the corner goal nearest to you and your alliance stations wall.

What happened was, a robot was trying to stack a tetra on the goal nearest to the pressure pads side of the field on the blue side.

A human player from the blue alliance ran to give their robot safely in their human player loading zone a tetra.

While she was doing this, the opposing team's robot was attempting to remedy a misaligned tetra they stacked on the corner goal (It was hanging off in that weird way when they are tilted on the tetra goal but still on the goal yet not scored.)

The human player went to run back to the pressure pad after safely giving their robot a tetra, and the misaligned tetra fell off the tetra goal, because the robot was attempting to grab the tetra and re-stack it, and hit the HP in the shoulder and leg (I believe.) resulting in a hospital trip.

I have video, but I don't want to show it unless I OK it from the team who this happened to first.

The Human player was back in the arena later that day and she actually wanted to see the video of the accident (something I wouldn't do that soon after the incident, so I'll give her credit for that!)

So, to all Human Players, be a fast human player to play competitively, but also be aware of your surroundings at all times!!!!

I'm really not sure if this could have been prevented in this case because it happened so fast, but as I said, Be careful, and be aware of your surroundings at all times.

Re: A Warning to Human Players for safety's sake.
 

I would also like to warn the human players to be aware of each other on the trip to and from the pressure pad. I know that there is a lot of action and you are trying to get back and forth as fast as possible, but I did see 1 human player at the St. Louis regional get hit in the side of the head by the tetra another human player was holding, 1 running back to the pad and the other running to the loading zone. Fortunately he got right back up and seemed more suprised than hurt.

Re: A Warning to Human Players for safety's sake.
 

Another big risk is other alliance robots at the other loading stations, we had a bunch of very close calls at GLR.

Re: A Warning to Human Players for safety's sake.
 

Another risk, when using two human loader stations, is that the
human player returning from one station might be struck by an
arm from a robot that is coming into the other human player
station. We had a near miss at Sacramento, where the
a second robot (ours) was turning at a high speed near the loading
station in order to line up for it. The swinging arm exceeded the
field boundary and missed a returning human player's head by just a foot.

The referees should probably be calling safety penalties for
robots that swing their arms outside of the field bounderies.
In the near miss that I saw, a 20 pound aluminum arm would have
struck a players head as if were a sledge hammer. Scary!

Re: A Warning to Human Players for safety's sake.
 

Ouch, sounds like it hurt. What exactly happened to her? Did she break anything or get cut or what?

Re: A Warning to Human Players for safety's sake.
 

This happened in Pittsburgh also during finals rounds. A tetra was being dangled over the driver station - and it capped a drive team member. He caught it as it was being dropped on his head and avoided injury. I think the robot was pushed and the tetra ended up over the wall, but I can't remember the details exactly.

Re: A Warning to Human Players for safety's sake.
 

In Florida when tytus was in the driving station a tetra came over top and hit him in the head

Re: A Warning to Human Players for safety's sake.
 

Thanks for the heads up Elgin. I never even thought a thing like that could happen...but now I know! :)

Re: A Warning to Human Players for safety's sake.
 

She was 228's HP, but luckily we had a back-up. Nothing was broken, but it was a really bad bruise and a charlie-horse cramp at the same time; and she had to be carried off the field. Just to be on the safe side, they took her to the hospital. She was back in a few hours, on the sidelines cheering us on for the elimination rounds. I saw her in school today, and she'll be on crutches for a few more days. But from what our team captain said, who's also her older brother, you can see the V-shape in the bruise on her leg from the corner of the tetra. But she's in good spirits, and will be fine soon enough. Elgin, I'd like to see the video of that, maybe you can possibly PM me the link to it? I'll talk to her tomorrow to see if she would mind the video being made public.

Also, our team was talking about this, and FIRST really should extend the Lexan wall that protects the drivers to the entire width of the field, and possibly wrap around the corner a few feet, to safe guard the human players from tetras that come off the corner goals. Otherwise, move the pressure pads back a few feet away from the field. To all other human players, just keep your eyes open, and remember that your safety is more important than staying on the pressure pad.

Re: A Warning to Human Players for safety's sake.
 

WEll the fields are brand new this year, from my understand from what Bob Hammond told me ( FIRST director at UCF regional) that the fields are made by a third party and to change the fields would require money and time. So nothing can be done this year but maybe in the future. Just everyone has to pay attention and stay safe. KNowing from standing on the side of the field were the auto loaders were, we almost got hit a few times. so even volunteers and refs and people on the field please always keep your eyes on the field at all times

Re: A Warning to Human Players for safety's sake.
 

At GLR, the head ref said any robot whoe's arm/tetra crossed the plane of the drivers station plexi window would be disabled for saftey reasons becuase they could fall and hurt a driver.

Re: A Warning to Human Players for safety's sake.
 

I also happened to see the girl get hit. They stopped the match with about 1 sec left and they redid the match. Its good to hear that shes ok. personally i wear a helmet when i was human player. although nothing hit me i think it is a precaution more teams should make after seeing this incident. hopefully i wont be the only human player at nationals who is wearing a helmet like i was at the regional.

-Crash

Re: A Warning to Human Players for safety's sake.
 

I just wonder what happens in the case where they disable the robot, and it drops the tetra anyways, because that's the way it was designed. Could cause more harm than if left alone to correct itself. I think that was commented on elsewhere.... Guess they take a chance either way on the safety bit... If I remember right, the arm came over the wall because they got pushed by another robot (but not sure, but I don't believe they were disabled). Unfortunate if someone should get disabled in this case when they didn't initiate going over the wall. With such a vertical game, guess those walls shoulda been much higher. Let's hope everyone stays awake and there aren't any serious injuries this season... Dig up some hardhats everyone....

Re: A Warning to Human Players for safety's sake.
 

yeah i was retrieving one tetra off the autoloader at ucf and it got caught underneath the bar of the loader and i almost pulled the loader into play with the tetra luckily the feild attendant was carefull and stepped back and kept it from coming in the field

Re: A Warning to Human Players for safety's sake.
 

Well...... That probably wouldn't help considering how the robots are designed this year (very tall). I know the same thing happened at the regional I went to. A tetra came very close to hitting the drivers despite the lexan wall. Fortunately, a field attendant just casually grabed the tetra as it was about to fall.