just a reminder to remove everything expensive and fragile around ball shooters
 

please remember to remove all measuring equipment around the ball shooter(or anything that's expensive and fragile) :)

you can watch our mistake here

Re: just a reminder to remove everything expensive and fragile around ball shooters
 

interesting use for a lathe!

Re: just a reminder to remove everything expensive and fragile around ball shooters
 

Also, look out for fire sprinkler heads. Set off one of those and you'll have a wet 'bot (not to mention an evacuation).

Re: just a reminder to remove everything expensive and fragile around ball shooters
 

If an object is within range and it is expensive, necessary, unreplaceable, or able to be hurt/maimed, then that is the object that the projectile is going to hit 9 times out of 10.
Be careful! Be safe!

Re: just a reminder to remove everything expensive and fragile around ball shooters
 

Where are your mentors? I can't believe that anybody let you do that.

This is the first (and, if this stuff keeps up, last) time FIRST has allowed high-speed projectiles in years. Please use some common sense, people.

Re: just a reminder to remove everything expensive and fragile around ball shooters
 

I was going to ask the same thing. A lathe is not a toy, and anything flying off of it can cause some serious damage. You should've had one of the mentors watching what you were doing.

At least nobody got hurt.

Re: just a reminder to remove everything expensive and fragile around ball shooters
 

a mentor was in the next room over and knew what we were doing.

we have regular use the lathe everyday almost, we all know how to use it, and how dangerous it could be.

i don't see why it's so unbeleivable about attaching the wheels to a lathe. it's simular to what we would have used motor-wise the only difference would be we would

we were testing to see if 1400 rpm was enough, the one wheel didn't get the wheel too far, however once we added the second wheel it got much more distance and 'channeled' the ball forward.

we should have had a system to put the ball in the same way everytime, if we did the ball wouldn't have hit the side of the wheel and gone sideways.

bottom line is we should have taken better care and moved everything out of the way, and not just everything in front of it. balls can bounce, and just not go where they'rre intended to.

Re: just a reminder to remove everything expensive and fragile around ball shooters
 

Don't forget that the robot counts in this too. A richochet (while not likely with foam balls) could happen. Test in open areas, which have the added benefit of letting you see if anyones coming into the line of fire. (No, "Oh! I didn't see you around the corner!"

Re: just a reminder to remove everything expensive and fragile around ball shooters
 

Safety Glasses?
Didn't see any in the video

Re: just a reminder to remove everything expensive and fragile around ball shooters
 

Generally, when you do something stupid and unsafe, it isn't the best idea to go and tell thousands of people on CD about it. :rolleyes:

Re: just a reminder to remove everything expensive and fragile around ball shooters
 

this is true as we weren't machining anything at the time
i don't believe a flying 7" foam ball will cause too much damage, not at that speed anyways.

being a technical school the first thing we learn is safety.

Re: just a reminder to remove everything expensive and fragile around ball shooters
 

You were running a lathe at high speed. Things can fly off and do some pretty serious damage.

At both the machine shop our team uses and my day job, this sort of thing would've gotten you in serious trouble.

Re: just a reminder to remove everything expensive and fragile around ball shooters
 

While this might be true and you might never get hurt doing what you did, there is a slight chance that you may get hurt from using a lathe in a way that it wasn't designed to. Use it to spin a wheel to shoot a ball across the room full of machinary and tools? I highly doubt that's the real purpose of a lathe.

But that's not the issue. You guys have obviously concluded it is ok to do it, otherwise you would've have done what you've done. There's no arguing if your mentors and school administrators think that's an ok thing to do.

The issue is, don't post in this forum and show this video to the FIRST community without expecting the rest of us flooding you with messages saying "this isn't safe!!!" In a competition where safety glasses is mandatory on the playing field as well as the pit area, and when safety is an award itself, do not expect people to say nice thing about dangerous acts. Don't expect anything less from us.

So, you can learn to listen to good advice, or risk getting hurt in the future. Just don't say we never warned you ;).

Re: just a reminder to remove everything expensive and fragile around ball shooters
 

Yes, It was unsafe. No they weren't wearing safety glasses, and no, there mentor wasn't present in the room. What can you expect, we're highschool kids. When we do this stuff, we learn from it and don't do it again. This thread was to warn people about their mistakes, and that's not a bad thing to do. I see where you are coming from by telling them to be WAY more careful, but by everyone saying it at the same time and in such harsh terms... you make people feel ganged up upon. Thats my 2 cent's, Sorry if you don't like it.


Sincerely ,
Cody Carey

Re: just a reminder to remove everything expensive and fragile around ball shooters
 

the top speed of that lathe is 1400 rpm and the small cim we were originally going to use is 3000+ rpm

i really don't see how this could be any less dangerous than any other attempt for a prototype, we were shooting towards the classroom half of the room, where the greatest danger are rulers and vices, which could of course hurt you, everything has potential to hurt you. don't be like those people who wear plastic gloves everywhere they go, sure it keeps then safe from germs, but it really isn't necessary.

and as cody c said, we're high school kids, dumb things can be expected from us.