Re: Safety Award
 

As someone who worked at and helped to coordinate the short-staffed safety glasses stations where the safety glasses were checked in and out at the Lone Star Regional in Houston, I found that it was very helpful having students volunteer their time to help man the tables.

The judges want to understand that you, as teams, understand the importance of safety and that you share that importance with others in how you conduct yourselves in the pits and in the venue, setting safety as a priority. They want to see safety in action and role modeled. They also appreciate everyone's sincere efforts to respect safety and to help keep it a safe competition environment. Just as in everything, the teams that get that rise to the surface. The teams who are putting on artificial airs or show, sink. Guaranteed. If you volunteer at the safety glasses table for an hour or two at any of the competitions, you can watch it happen. Guaranteed.

Just a couple of suggestions:
- teams bring your own safety glasses. If members can buy 2 pair, buy them and share with those who forget or are short on cash. Please don't go for cutsie or clever when purchasing the glasses, go for safety and comfort.
- bring enough for expected guests and visitors and remind them to wear close-toed shoes that could be worn in your shop or work area.
- remind your guests of the children under 12 rule and help make arrangements for their visits. The less you prepare your guests with/for the safety expectations for a visit to an FRC competition, the less prepared you are as a team and it shows.

.02,
Jane

Re: Safety Award
 

At the MI State Championships, our team broke the record for safety tokens there, aprox. 165 or 167. One of the biggest things you can do it is to let safety become natural, not artificial or forced.

Some of the things that the judges noted were:

1. In order to even step into our facilities, every member must complie with MIOSHA standards
2. Our school system requires all high school students to undergo Red Cross Certification (CPR and AED training).
3. We have an emergency power shut-off button in our pit.
4. A couple times, we were questioned on where the closest AED was in the competition complex.

These are some of the things off the top of my head that i thought were key in our success. But it doesn't hurt that our safety captain memorized some of the material data sheets and emergency procedures.

Re: Safety Award
 

This year at the Florida Regional and in Atlanta we gave out shoes to VIP's and other people who were not wearing closed toed shoes so they could check out the pits too......

dident win the saftey award though(we won it our rookie year in 05':rolleyes: )

Re: Safety Award
 

One thing that we did during build season, and brought along for the pit, was keep an accident log. When we made a potentially dangerous mistake we would record it and point out ways to avoid such occurrences in the future.