Quote:
Originally Posted by MrJohnston
I very much disagree with the idea of limitting pit access. The pits are the best place to come and interact with students, see the robots up close and really learning what goes into them. As I lead a field trip of fourth graders around, I noticed their fascination with their close-up view of robots and they loved watching HS kids making repairs. They REALLY loved collecting buttons, etc. For them, it was their coolest field trip ever - something they will never forget - talking about inspiring another generation of engineers! Instead, we need to focus on doing whatever needs to be done in order to keep them safe from teh masses we invite to the competitions.
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I agree that primary access limitations should come out of the teams' allocations rather than visitors. Or rather, the teams' pits themselves. I'd be willing to get that if we enforced having whoever was in a specific pit actually
in that pit--with any volume reductions intended to come out of that teams' members or setup--a lot of this issue would go away. Instead, 'safety' seems to have degenerated into spectacle. (That doesn't downplay the need for coordinating traffic flow and maybe some larger tour groups, but hopefully not to the point of damaging FIRST's mission or image.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Brinza
I directly confronted a safety advisor who ordered my student to wear gloves while operating a drill press. I told my student to stop work, but not put gloves on. Then asked the safety advisor to send the lead safety advisor to our pit to explain how wearing gloves was in any way safe around a drill press. The original safety advisor returned a few minutes later and apologized. I wouldn't want a student to lose a hand by having the glove get wrapped into the drill. I would hope safety advisors are correctly briefed on important issues and not on how to create more chaos in the pits.
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I should have done this. We once had one harass us so much about this that we didn't get a chance to finish before our next match (we only had a few minutes as it was). It's sad when such an important and generally professional and helpful volunteer cohort gets such a bad rap due to poor training.