Near-death experiences or injuries during build season?

[AlexJamesCross]

Well in my Rookie year there was a battery that the cable was missing so i proceeded to see if i could feel a charge from the battery. I tapped my fingers trying to quickly complete the circuit as to not get hurt that badly but felt nothing. So i did the smart thing and took a wrench and completed the circuit. So there was a REALLY BRIGHT light and i was being shocked and was able to get myself off. But i was burnt on my fingers and very shakey and the wrench was welded

[tsakshaug]

Not during build season, but during a regional. Last year at FLR, I was working field reset. During a match one of the tubes came out of the field, I bent down to pick it up and toss it back, just as I was standing up, a robot arm came whipping over my head missing by a few inches, think some of it grazed my head.

[Cecil]

In 2008's Overdrive, we had one minor flaw with our robot: when the compressor was on and the battery decided to drop below 8 volts, the solenoid for the extremely big and heavy tilting mechanism would automatically fire. Me, being the sole electrical/programming person, was right up front fixing something with the IR board used for hybrid mode that year when it first happened. All I heard was a small pop and a hiss, and next thing I know, I'm on the ground with half a robot on top of me. Thankfully, I was not hurt that bad, but from that point forward, any time anyone would hear that familiar hiss, someone had to jump for the controls to stop it before it swung forward (it has about a 3 second delay from when it fires to when it moves, that is how heavy it is).

[smod]

A couple of us were working on the batteries when my friend took 2 pieces of metal and touched them to eachother, then the battery terminals... (idiot)
Lucky for him, he wasn't shocked, but it made a HUGE spark!

Another time we were machineing on the mill when the bit came loose and flew out. No one was hurt though.

[theprgramerdude]

Based on my experiences, and of those of others, it should be taught immediately to all curious new students that short circuits on these extremely powerful batteries =

[Jon Stratis]

Last year another one of our mentors had a great "this is what NOT to do" demonstration moment. He was drilling something, and supporting it with his hand... he ended up drilling halfway into his hand too.

[EricH]

I've seen a robot, before the programming was fixed (and yes, this was a programming problem), try to decapitate event staff. No, it wasn't my team's robot.

This was back in 2003, when this whole "autonomous" thing first started. This particular robot had a rather long, rather quickly rotating arm that would telescope out autonomously, swing in a half-circle or so, raise to vertical to retract back and lock, and then stow itself for the rest of the match while the robot started driving. There was just one problem...

The code didn't work quite like that at the local preship scrimmage. It had the telescoping out part down pretty well, but the whole "half-circle" part was still being tweaked, along with the timing of starting to drive and the ability to retract. This >10' aluminum arm comes swinging outside the field border, rather wildly, and for whatever reason it's swinging just about right at the head ref and the MC, who have to duck and jump. Even field reset had to jump back a time or two. After two matches of that, that part of the autonomous was disabled until they could prove it worked.

The good news is the team in question didn't do that at the regionals--they'd gotten the code under control by then.

[fox46]

Two words: Chuck Keys

Make sure all your new students get into the habit of ALWAYS removing them. people love to leave chuck keys sitting in lathe chucks. When you turn them on, things get really interesting REALLY fast.

[rhf323]

A belt sander broke sending the belt flying at my face

[Newo95]

This isn't a near death experience for me, but for one of my teamates. In 2010 we wanted to test the power of a winch we were considering using for the bonus. We wanted to test it under a load, but had no weights. We ended up just bolting it to a piece of wood and having a team member (ironically our safety captain) stand on the wood while the winch hoisted him in the air. No one was hurt, but our lead mentor was none too happy when he saw us.

[nitneylion452]

Seeing this thread makes me think. Is there some sort of waiver for FRC teams, removing teams/schools from liability for any injury sustained during a team function? If there isn't, there really shouldn't be. The last thing FIRST needs is to have a kid lose a finger or something due to his/her own carelessness or some sort of machine malfunction. Is that perhaps part of TIMS?

[theprgramerdude]

All teams have to have each student sign a waiver when they come to both kickoffs and regionals.

[FRC4ME]

One of my teammates found a three-prong AC plug lying around that wasn't attached to a cable; just three exposed screw terminals. Of course, his immediate instinct was to plug it in.

These stories might be somewhat entertaining, but hopefully teams also see them as examples of why safe working practices are so important. "Near-death experience" means exactly what it says: something that can kill you if you aren't lucky.

[CaptSafety]

While setting up a simple test rig for a gyroscope, my mentor set the rig down on the robot and turned away. Unbenounced to him, he set it right on top of exposed battery terminals which the mechanics neglected to cover. The gyroscope proceeded to catch fire and a nasty plume of smoke came from the robot. We had to ventilate the room. From then on, we checked that the battery terminals were covered.

Lesson learned; cover all exposed terminals. And make sure not to use frayed PWM cables.

[kjohnson]

Originally Posted by theprgramerdude

All teams have to have each student sign a waiver when they come to both kickoffs and regionals.

That is a waiver for the event, not for the activities the team members are involved in during build season.

For us, any team member under 16 may only use hand tools. 16+ are allowed to use power tools and larger shop equipment under supervision of an adult mentor and proper training.