[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

You must have missed my earlier post. I did check with Mercotac engineering, earlier this year. Their response was that mercury spills were a reality when the maximum current or the mechanical specifications (specifically misalignment of the two rotating bodies and excessive vibration) are exceeded.

I didn't say you couldn't spill mercury by breaking these. I said that there probably wasn't much to spill. (In other words, it's a question of the magnitude of the hazard, rather than the existence of the hazard.)

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

There is a difference between "mercury wetted contacts" and using mercury as a contact. These fit into the latter category. For more info please refer to their literature... http://www.mercotac.com/html/literature.html

I'd previously referred to that documentation, and I don't believe it explained that difference. Can you elaborate on why these are in one category, but not the other?

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

In the case of a mercury spills on an FRC field does the amount or cleanup procedure really matter? Any is too much!

If a fluorescent light above the field were to shatter, surely the amount of mercury released and its state would be considered when choosing corrective actions. Why is this different?

In terms of assessing risks, even if a prohibition exists, inspections won't catch everything, and force majeure is still a possibility, so event staff may still be in the position to decide whether a chemical hazard justifies (for example) suspending the event. It's fine to set zero mercury contamination as a target, but it's unreasonable to suppose that contamination is inherently unacceptable, irrespective of degree.


I think the best action is definitely to communicate it to FIRST, so that they can decide what risks are acceptable and codify prohibitions and procedures accordingly. It's crucial to do so in a way that educates FIRST about the hazards without sensationalizing them, because there are important considerations other than safety which must be weighed realistically. If we expected to be completely safe, we probably wouldn't attend competitions where robots fling balls around—so perhaps the thresholds of risk due to chemical exposure should be evaluated against that sort of benchmark.