[Thromgord]

There are a couple of good ones over here:

Two years ago at Regionals, me and another person were carrying out a robot onto the field when I tripped on the dolly it had been carried on. I fell halfway down and effectively caught my end of the robot with my calf. While this didn't break the skin, it did hurt a lot and left a pretty impressive bruise. Fortunately, the robot was okay, which is the important part.

Last year, we were using a spring-loaded catapult to throw our ball. The device was pulled back with a pretty powerful winch (~350lbs of force) because the springs were really strong. A member of our team got his finger caught between the bottom of the mechanism and the catapult, and the end of his finger was nearly crushed off. There was lots of blood loss and he ended up going into shock despite our best efforts... which was unbelievably scary. Fortunately, both him and his finger are doing better, though his fingernail will never be the same.

We're trying to take safety a little more seriously this year... so far, everyone seems to be more safety-conscious than last year. We'll see if we can get through the build season without incident. I really hope so.