[Kevin Sevcik]

Way way back at the dawn of time when our team was young... (10 years ago) We got to build in the machine shop at the Land Machines Division of Brown & Root. AND they let us use their nice lathes and mills. With those nifty speedy chuck keys and everything. Then there was the day we all heard a gigantic bang from the lathe area. High speed flying chuck keys are terrifying and loud when they hit the wall. But that wasn't what got use restricted to spring loaded safety keys. It was the second time the key was left in the lathe and (luckily) stayed in long enough to be violently slammed into the ways and visibly bent. So yeah, everyone please remember that lathes are one of the most dangerous machine tools you'll encounter. And keep your hand on the chuck key whenever it's in the chuck. If you never let it go till it's out of the chuck, it's stupendously less likely to take flight.

Unrelated to FRC, but we recently had a close call at my workplace. A welding positioner about the size of the attached photo was being anchored to the concrete when one of the anchors failed and the whole thing fell forward, narrowly missing one of our shop hands. Obviously an extremely serious incident and we're making some changes around the shop to prevent any reoccurrences. So any of you working in industrial shops, do remember to be wary of the big machines around you.