Quote:
Originally Posted by hzdbl5
And for the record, we lost the safety award at one event last year when one of the safety judges deliberately stepped in front of our drive team who was transporting our robot and was upset when our kids simply said, "excuse us, please" rather than shouting "ROBOT!".
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Yeah, unfortunately that was happening at a few events in Michigan a couple years ago. The majority of the key volunteers find the shouting of "Robot!" obnoxious though. At MSC last year, I asked the Safety People to kindly ask teams to not shout that and instead say, "Excuse me." They agreed that that was best, and it wasn't an issue the rest of the weekend. And, unsurprisingly, no one was run over by a robot.
I think the OP is awesome for creating this thread!
NO ONE is suggesting that safety isn't important. Safety is obviously an important topic that all teams need to have policies for. That said, I could do with less Safety Theater.
An example of Safety Theater:
A couple years ago, a team won the Safety Award for how they carried their robot with two poles sticking through their machine, so students wouldn't hurt their hands by gripping a pinching section in the robot. Sure, the students carrying the robot were safer....but not the people around them who kept getting hit with the poles extended from the robot as they walked by or turned around. Ouch.
Safety: an essential aspect of every FIRST, especially FRC, team.
Safety Theater: doing something JUST to win the Safety Award.