[Gui Cavalcanti]

At the Viriginia State Fair last year, my team was letting all the rookies drive. It turned out to be a bad idea... the hammer to Peacemaker was ripped off our robot by two girls who decided it would be cute to try and lift up one of the mid-field rails while moving forwards at full speed. Anyways...

Peacemaker develops a problem with his treads halfway through the Fair. I can see the right tread starting to slip off, so I climb over the field barriers to investigate. The rookie driver was warned by 3 different people to stop moving at this point, while I try to pop the treads back on. Apparently he got twitchy and moved the robot forward as my hands were in the robot. My left pointer finger was sucked into the drive pulley of our robot's treads (I'm still thankful that we used a belt that year, opposed to the chain-driven design that would not have spared my finger). The rookie apparently did not understand my yells to move backwards so I could get my finger out, and twitched forward some more. At this point a veteran team member nearby shoved him out of the way and backed up the robot, then we both went off to find medical attention. The rookie never showed up to one build season meeting. I was left with a flat finger for a week and a bad-looking fingernail for 3 or 4 months.

That's been my only severe robotics-related incident... the Mech Techs have never really had any problems with tools or anything like that, so everything's fine there. Only a few standard cuts and bruises that seem to appear out of thin air.