I think mine would have to be having a CIM motor go up in smoke
right above my head and being one of the last people to notice. North Bay, 2015.
The motor in question was powering our forklift for tote stacking so it was positioned at the top of the frame. The forklift was strapped down tight for transport and we were assembling, checking, and getting things ready for competition. Someone powered on the robot to check out the pneumatics, the robot tried to home the lift carriage, which would have been fine, except that by grand misfortune
someone* plugged in the encoder cable the wrong way, which caused wonky readings, which told the software "hey, the lift's not in the home position, better move it there"...
I smelled burning. I looked down to see if our RoboRio or any of the control boards or drive motors were smoking. Nope. I started calling out to the teams in the pits adjacent to ours. "Hey, something's burning. Is it yours?"
Then I realized everyone was staring. Then I saw our coach running and waving frantically at us. Then I looked up.
Burning CIM motors
stink.
*not me, I swear