What to do about theft?

[kgzak]

We have had multiple things stolen from our robotics room. We had a portable bandsaw, My personal drill, all our drill bits, a laptop, and, just last night, our entire tool box. My question is what can we do to prevent this from happening. We keep all of our stuff in a locked room. We believe that the thief may have the key seeing as there is no other way to get the tool box out of the room. I was thinking something like a security camera. Do you have any other ideas? I want to make sure nothing else can be stolen.

[Karibou]

Is the room located at a school, or at a sponsor's site? You should probably let the administration know, and give them a detailed description of the missing items. Also, getting the lock changed (if possible) might not be a bad idea as well.

[Mk.32]

I am not expert but there is my .02$.
Well if he/she has a key, change your locks you and also look into who could have a key. A camera sounds good as long as it doesn't cost to much or possibly a cheap alarm system. Even maybe just stick a alarm sticker on the door to scare thieves away. Best of luck to you.

[kgzak]

This is located at our school. The problem is there is a master key to all our rooms and I don't know if the school would want to have the lock for one room different than the rest. We have told the administration and they will be an insurance claim filed and possible investigation. We are doing everything we can think of. I'll be talking with one of our teachers tomorrow to see if he has any more information on what is happening.

[Tristan Lall]

When all else fails, you'll find an answer in religion.

[LightWaves1636]

We're going through the same exact situation. We missing a lot of tools, materials, and equipment (so many countless cameras have gone missing).....

It's getting quite difficult cause it's not just the janitorial staff and administration who has key access but the contractors working on the school too.

The mentors are now at a point where we're pitching in to set up security cameras in our rooms.......

[BJT]

Trail cameras, the ones for taking pics of deer, are great for security. the digital ones with infrared flash work great.

[ToddF]

Our shop has practically open access to students passing through it. We have 3 or 4 big cabinets in which we store anything small and valuable (electronics, drill bits, etc.). These are padlocked. Only the head coach and asst coach have keys. All portable power tools are returned to their cases and padlocked into a cabinet under our heaviest workbench. This way, we are not relying on school security. We have our own.

This keeps honest people honest. Someone with a bolt cutter could still cut the padlocks off the cabinets, but no one can simply do a grab and dash. It also enforces discipline on our students to clean everything up and put it away before leaving the shop.

[Matt704]

We actually had a problem very similar to this. We had expensive equipment stolen. We are actually in a portable building outside of our school so people would break the windows take tools and leave. So this wouldn't happen again we put a chain-link cage up in a corner of the room (which is where we store all of our tools) and covered the windows.

I don't know if the same thing would be possible for y'all, but I hope this can help.

[Tim Delles]

Have you ever thought about branding your things?

On my old team we had all of our tools painted in bright pink. If things turned up missing and we found a tool painted bright pink, we knew it was ours. It pretty much stopped anyone from trying to take them.

[Scott L.]

I went to a college were the lab computers were all protected by a system were a fiber optic cable loop was passed through a little adapter that bolted to the case (you had to remove the fiber to access the bolt), if the loop was broken without properly disarming the system, the authorities were called automatically. Setting up a similar system were a very loud siren is secured in a tamper proof box, with two fiber optic passthrough connectors, and the external fiber is passed through all handles, adapters, etc, a security system can be created. Fiber has the advantage of being hard to bypass without breaking the loop triggering the alarm. There is system were you can track who accesses the room and exactly when, through fingerprints, smart cards, tokens.

[kgzak]

The locks have been changed and the police have been called. Our teacher keeps "hinting" at something but isn't allowed to tell us anything.

[seannoseworthy]

We use the axis camera, mounted in the corner of our room on the ceiling. We use the software Yawcam but there are many other programs. Evey time there is motion, a picture is taken and saved to drop box so we can always keep a eye on whats happening.

[MishraArtificer]

Have you tried gluing a Windows ME install disc to the front door?

If that doesn't work, try a Vista disc. WITHOUT SERVICE PACK 1!

All jokes aside, I once considered having the team, as practice during the offseason, build a security robot. A little simple thing, just sits in a corner, watching all the exits with some of the old KOP cameras. Power usage was the main problem.

[maltz1881]

When we were with a school many years ago, we had like a giant closet for our things. We had a padlock on it but the walls didn't go to the ceiling on this enclosement. Somebody climbed our it and poured PVC glue into (I have forgotten the name of it so many years ago) what was then the control system, before the Crio. They also poured it over our tools as well. Cameras or even fake cameras (though don't tell anybody they are fake) are great security tools. Have the pictures sent to an offsite computer if possible. We now work out of my garage. A few years ago we found a coach from another team going through our stuff.. said they needed to borrow some parts.. hello, you just don't go into somebody's stuff.