[Rapt0r9]

I worked at a gas station for about two years. During that time I have replaced many car batteries. The one thing that I remember my boss telling me is to always connect the positive line first. He said is was because the line would spark is the ground was connected first and sometimes fumes accumulate around the battery which will ignite. I have never tested this theory but it hasn't failed me yet.

As far as robot batteries, we always mount our battery upright and have the lugs away from any potential shorts. Our electrical team was quite new this year and I had repeatedly found some of the freshmen shorting batteries together. They said that they were trying to "weld the metal together". Even worse was finding breaker pannels with battery wires connected WITHOUT CRIMPS. The copper wire was just mashed on the terminal and a nut was tightened down on top of it. That is why they never got to wire much of the electrical on the robot.

Actually, our team has a funny story involving batteries. My freshman year, one of the guys on electrical took a wrench and shorted the two anderson connectors with it. Needless to say he dropped the wrench immediately and has been somewhat named sparky.