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Unread 16-03-2015, 00:18
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SJaladi SJaladi is offline
Mechanical Mentor
AKA: Sarath Jaladi
FRC #1923 (The MidKnight Inventors)
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: Jan 2013
Rookie Year: 2013
Location: New Jersey
Posts: 39
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Re: Safety Issue: Robots Moving in Pits

Quote:
Originally Posted by jman4747 View Post
TLDR? yes. Unlikely to happen next to each other? Yes. Completely improbable on their own? Not even.
Again I agree that it is possible to happen, however the intent of my post, which in all fairness I didn't specify clearly, was that in the specific case of our team we found that this year removing breakers was a far more efficient alternative to making the aforementioned plywood/2x4 platform. This is both because we have a very visible and accessible PD board to verify that the correct breakers have been removed, as well as what I would like to think is a reasonably experienced pit crew who would not make such a mistake. I totally agree that the safest way for a team to test their mechanisms would be the construct a platform like you described, but when we compared the relative ease of removing breakers with proper attention and care with the time required to build such a platform, which would have to be built to accommodate and appropriately simulate the height difference between our wheels and our intake, we decided that the breaker method was far optimal. Again I agree that if there is any risk of the robot driving away due to code or electrical uncertainty it should be tested with the wheels off the ground, something our cart allows us to do, however we will put the robot on the ground with the appropriate breakers pulled out to test our intake system.

TLDR; We personally found the removing breaker method to work for us, but I agree that the wheels being propped up is a failsafe way of testing mechanisms.
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