Quote:
Originally Posted by DampRobot
(Keep baking soda around at all times in case battery acid spills! Think about it, I've been doing this for going on four years, and I've never seen or even heard from another team about battery acid spilling.)
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Actually--speaking of the importance of actual safety education--this is a very real problem. I'm far from "ikn the know", and I can name at least 3 spills in my driving distance this year alone. Someone absolutely could have been hurt (very badly!) had those involved not known what to do. Sure, it's not every third (or likely even every 100th or 1000th) battery, but it's not unlikely that you'll see it if you keep an eye open. And given how dangerous a leaking lead acid battery is, much better to have as many people as possible prepared so when the 1/1000 leak comes up, someone there can handle it.
One thing that might be kind of cool for safety "kit":
We have (well, had) probably a dozen different mini-first aid kits this season alone. They definitely do clutter, and they tend not to operate well in any teams' actual system. (Read: it works better as advertising than assistance, not that there's anything particularly wrong with advertising.) What you might do, if you wanted, is consider helping teams
within their pre-existing safety system. For instance, you could offer to augment or update teams' existing first aid kit: ask if you can inventory it, replace expired meds, deteriorating adhesives, etc. (I bet you'll find some teams don't even know items expire!) Or, offer personalized pit safety improvements: e.g. I seem remember a team that would put Anderson connectors on teams' battery chargers. Those seem to be pretty ubiquitous now (at least around here), but perhaps something similar.
Basically, look to work with teams' existing safety program (or lack thereof). It's more work and you'll probably get quite a few "no thank you"s, but it's also much more meaningful.