I have been involved with FIRST for 8 years now. Safety should be everyones top priority. (Mr. Ivey, this is a great post I will be bringing back to my students). Let's get back to true safety and not gimmickry and non-sense.
First, some what not-to-dos.
These are injuries from "safety" related events either directly happened to me or a person within 6 feet of me:
Slipped on a "safety" poster that someone had taped up on brick over dusty tile. It fell down, I fell down.
Paper cut from numerous safety sheets handed out in the pits. Dogs and babies wearing safety glasses are cute, but I don't need 10 copies from every team!
Ringing ear from bull-horn anouncing, "robot coming through" (they were asked to stop with the bull-horn shortly there-after). Note a ringing ear means temprorary to permanent hearing damage! As a noise and vibe engineer, my hearing is critical to my job. I shouldn't have to wear ear-plugs because you want to scream in my ear.
Struck by numerous butons and "safety sticks" from Robot Coming through crew. Its a visual aid, not a light saber. Please stop hitting me with them! Your robot has to been less than 4 feet wide, striking me to get a 10 foot wide path is unreasonable.
Struck by a cart because they had a "robot coming through person" and thus I should have jumped out of the way.
I will yield the right of way, but aisleways are for pedestrians too. Would you drive a car that way?
Cracked on the shin by a 6' handle sticking out of somone's bot so they could "lift it safely". I was not the only one. They usually hit 3-4 people on the way to EVERY match I watched them move their bot. We have 12 matches in Michigan. 3 of my teammates had bruised shins, and many many others at the event. Note this team won the saftey award for that.
A safety advisor burnt her finger on a glue gun because she was moving them (where they had been fine for 2 days) because they were clearly going to cause an accident.
My teammate was manhandled by a safety advisor was we were heading to the pits to get safety glasses (note this was at a time of day before tools were allowed).
*****************
In 2008, our safety rep was continuously being hassled by the safety advisors at our second event. After the third time they accousted her (and nearly brought her to tears over a candy-bar wrapper), I stepped in and wouldn't allow them to talk to her anymore. The irony of this one was that 2 weekends before she had won the UL Safety Captain of the day at a different event. They came back for a fourth visit, and we had to get the regional commitee involved to stop the harassment.
I am all for safety and safe practices, but after the 2008 reprimand, we haven't had a safety captain because we would prefer the advisors give us the tongue lashing and not the kids. If the student is being un-safe, stop the behaviour and address it. There is no reason a student should be brought to tears because they set a small bag of chips on top of the tool box while going through system checks.
******************
As Dean says in his speeches,
you will encourage the behaviors you reward. I applaud anyone given the safety award for having rigourous safety training of their students and "0 injuries" recorded for the year.
I applaud teams that win the award that make real safety a priority.
However, the Gimmickry really should stop. Especially the behaviours that are leading to waste and injury, not to mention disdain from experienced members of the community.
Team XYZ: "This is our safety Plow. It knocks men, women and small children out of our way so that the robot can move through the crowd safely and swiftly."
Me: "Uh How can you see around that giant plow. That doesn't seem safe, couldn't you just go slower?"
Team XYZ: "Clearly it is improved safety. We filed the edges of our plow and installed a 140 dB fog horn so that everyone in the next county knows when we are comng through. Plus we painted safety first on it!"
*************************
What would I like to see?
How about a team winning the award for handing out souveneir (sp) safety glasses at an event so that people going home can have a pair of safety glasses and remember the event as a positive experience.
How about "pull" style carts so that the person or persons moving the bot are the first point of impact, and not the cart.
Carts of reasonable size and mass. If your cart needs a hemi to assist it through the pits, and technically the crew needs a CDL to operate it, its too big!
How about UL providing a booth with safety videos including a brief history of why the safe practices are around and the dangers in the workplace that have been improved.
How about a review of teams testing procedures that ensure everyone is clear before the robot eats someone.