Safety Issue: Robots Moving in Pits

[philso]

Originally Posted by robochick1319

I guess I would just ask everyone to really, really think if there is another way you could test your robot without engaging the wheels (lift them off the ground or disconnect them).

This thread has shown that I am in the minority on the opinion that this is serious risk to teams. I hope there are no future incidents that prove me right.

Is this the only way to make the testing safe? Perhaps consider what FrankJ suggested. In Risk Management, we are taught to minimize the probability of a negative outcome AND minimize the impact of that negative outcome.

It must be recognized that the negative outcome is not the desired outcome when testing a mechanism and that it is only one of many possible outcomes, most of them positive. It must also be recognized that the negative outcome of testing a mechanism is often unforeseen. Totally denying the opportunity for that negative outcome to occur means that the team developing the mechanism does not have the chance to know about the negative outcome and so they will not find a way to mitigate it. Thus the hazard still exists. It has just been shifted to a different time and place.

Originally Posted by robochick1319

I think you may have misunderstood my point. I don't care how you run your team so long as the decisions you make for your team do not negatively impact my team (i.e. cause a serious safety risk).

You be you, let me be me, but let's all do it...safely? (rhyming not intended, I swear)

While it is very undesirable for the negative outcomes of one team's actions to have an impact on other participants, it is also very undesirable when one or more teams perceives a threat and imposes extra restrictions on other participants who have a way of dealing with those threats. While a proposed rule may make sense when examined in isolation, it's value is diluted when added to an already long list of rules (how long is the Game Manual and the Game Q&Q now?) that participants are less and less likely to read the longer it gets. The risk of something bad happening then increases as you add more rules. There are questions asked on CD where the answers are in the Game Manual and require little or no interpretation or cross-referencing to other rules.