[ALIBI]

Everything is relative. A 145lb robot traveling at 18fps can do far more damage than any trackball that has been launched. 2007's arms coming up in the wrong place (you know what I mean) could easily cause intense pain. Airborn flags from years past became projectiles. Arms getting tubes over the alliance station walls aways got a little bit too close to players heads for my comfort level. My point is that you can always find something that is dangerous. It is how you deal with that danger that is important.

Most shooters will not find it necessary to arm themselves except while on the playing field or when testing with whatever necessary precautions are needed (i.e. not in the pits). All the kids on my team are well aware of the dangers when their robot is armed (we did several dry launches). What concerns me is what will happen when the match is over. While we plan to release any stored energy before the end of the match, I am sure that there will be times when we or other teams will not release. That means that people will be scrambling to get their robots off the field with an armed launcher waiting to attack. We drove the robot around knocking ito things, bumped the launcher itself etc etc. while it was loaded to make sure that it only fires when commanded and we were never successful in getting it to accidentally launch. While the kids on my team are trained in what to do/what not to do when the robot is armed, no one else is. The first thing we will do when approaching the robot is insert a foot long pin that prevents the robot from firing or if the conditions allow, manually release the energy.

To me, the most dangerous time is when people unfamiliar with our robot are going near it to get their own robot or resetting the field. Perhaps they should take ten seconds after a match is complete to get a thumbs up/thumbs down signal from the launchers on the field that either their robot is safe (thumbs up), go ahead and clear the field or they need to lock out the launcher (thumbs down). Or have a simple, do not go within five feet of a launcher after a match until the team is there and gives their OK.