[FRC Blog] Weather and Safety, An Opening, and Award Deadlines

[magnets]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

Ah, safety.

Just last week, a student was cutting a piece of 80/20 on a chop saw, holding it by hand. It got away from him, flew across the shop and whacked (hard!) a young lady. Right in the glasses.

The glasses did not shatter, but did get a nice scratch. The top edge of the glasses also hit the young lady in the forehead, leaving a small red 'dent'.

She was nowhere near the chop saw.

Had she not been wearing her glasses, she'd most certainly have lost an eye. Her glasses did exactly what they were supposed to, because she was wearing them.

True story.
Think about that.

I've got a scary one too.

A few nights ago, I was turning down some shafts on a lathe, and the power went out. Our school has an emergency generator, which came on, but only powered a few emergency lights. To be safe, I hit the switch on the lathe, then proceeded to remove the part from the chuck to bring it to the next room. As I turned around to grab a rag, the power came back, the lathe started (with chuck key in chuck), and flung the heavy steel key 20 feet across the room and made a hole in the wall. Instead of turning off the power for the lathe, I turned off the power feed, which has the same handle and operates in the same way as the lever for power. If the power had come on a second later, the chuck key would have probably killed me.

-As for the metal chop saw, we always advise students to use a clamp. It's just so easy for the blade to catch the edge and send the part flying.