[Mike Betts]

You should add a safety pin to the latch mechanism. What do I mean by that?

Look at your school locker or gym locker. It has a handle that slides/moves up to open the locker. It also has a hole in the handle to accept a padlock. When the lock is in place, the locker can not be opened.

The deployment mechanism on your arm should have some similar safety mechanism so that it can not be deployed by mistake in the pits or being placed onto/off of the field. This safety pin/mechanism is removed as the very last action you do after you have placed the robot on the field for a match. It is also the first thing to go back onto the robot when removing the robot from the field.

Good Luck,

Mike