were there robot related injuries on your team?

[Koci]

When I was programming the auto, I was doing dead reckoning in bits and pieces, and when it finally worked to the end, i set it to do the full course, forgetting, of course, this meant continuing up the ramp forever. So after starting it, I went over there expecting it to stop, but it didn't, and ran me over, leaving a large gash on my forehead. The good news is, I stopped the robot.

[DougHogg]

1) One of our students was using a table saw to cut off a strip of UHMW (Ultra High Molecular Weight) plastic that we use as a bearing for our arm. (The arm rotates in a hole in the plastic which is very slippery stuff.) Apparently the plastic got hot and stuck to the blade, and somehow it pulled his finger over to the blade. He had a lot of stitches in that finger. The plastic is great stuff, but be careful if you are ever cutting it. A stick with a notch to hold down and push the plastic (push stick) would have prevented the accident.

2) Our telescoping arm this year has two motors. One raises the arm and the other rotates it.



One day during testing, the arm came up but didn't rotate. The engineer who designed the arm, came forward to see what the problem was. At that point, the arm suddenly swung and hit him right between the eyes on the bridge of his nose. He was hurting for several days. Apparently there was a loose wire which became "un-loose". (After this event, there were some ideas of changing the robot's name from "Yoda" to something like "Franky", short for "Frankenstein II".)

[Kel D]

at the philly regional, our driver was working on something on the robot, i dont know what exactly, and her hand was under the robot. well, another girl pushed the button for the suction cups to go down and they came down on our drivers finger and smashed it. it was pretty bad. it swelled up, it was terrible and all this before the elimination rounds. but she still got through it, she's a trooper!! after that, it got infected and she had to go on medication for it, but it cleared up for nationals, so we were happy.

[Will Hanashiro]

it may not be an injury, and it may not be robot related, but it is related to FIRST... but i feel that Pres. Bush falling off the segway is the FUNNIEST "injury" to date.

[Matt_Kaplan1902]

Originally posted by Will Hanashiro
it may not be an injury, and it may not be robot related, but it is related to FIRST... but i feel that Pres. Bush falling off the segway is the FUNNIEST "injury" to date.

that was hilarous. i belive it was tues night on the late show they had the top ten things going through bush's mind as he fell off the segway.

[Matt_Kaplan1902]

I FOUND THE LIST HERE IT IS:

Top Ten Things Going Through President Bush's Mind At This Moment (Falling off a Segway)


10. "$@#$@#$@#$@# you, Al-Qaeda!"

9. "I'm sure Thomas Jefferson fell off his Segway every now and then"

8. "It looked so easy on 'The Jetsons'"

7. "I misunderestimated my center of gravity"

6. "Thank God no one got a picture of this"

5. "Only 4 days 'til Hulk! Only 4 days 'til Hulk! Only 4 days 'til Hulk!"

4. "$@#$@#$@#$@#, this thing would give Cheney, like, 3 heart attacks"

3. "Congratulations, Segway -- you just joined the axis of evil"

2. "To distract everyone, bomb the hell out of Syria"

1. "AHHHHHHHHH!"

[JVN]

Originally posted by DougHogg
One day during testing, the arm came up but didn't rotate. The engineer who designed the arm, came forward to see what the problem was. At that point, the arm suddenly swung and hit him right between the eyes on the bridge of his nose. He was hurting for several days.

We were standing around the practice field on evening in Houston, and a "flailer" team (not 980, 234, 71, or 148... I don't remember who it was) was setting up their bot for practice. I guess they had their autonomous mode set backwards because instead of knocking down the wall... the arm swung out into the crowd of bystanders. After things calmed down, 3 Members of 229 were down on the ground, a 4th was standing there white as a ghost, muttering something about feeling something brush against his nose....

[AJ Quick]

I got an autonomous hit to the shins.

[Kel D]

Originally posted by JVN
We were standing around the practice field on evening in Houston, and a "flailer" team (not 980, 234, 71, or 148... I don't remember who it was) was setting up their bot for practice. I guess they had their autonomous mode set backwards because instead of knocking down the wall... the arm swung out into the crowd of bystanders. After things calmed down, 3 Members of 229 were down on the ground, a 4th was standing there white as a ghost, muttering something about feeling something brush against his nose....

could you be speaking of 433? we had a very similar inccident at nationals that happened more than once i think.

[Greg Perkins]

this year, we share a build area with team 166.
well they had a prototype drive system set up for their auto and gearboxs. our robot, 151 was lying in pieces on the opposite end of our makeshift playing field. well 5 minutes before, 166 setup thier robot backwards and it drove into our driver. well, to say the least...he wasnt very happy...anyway..
well they set it up in the correct position for another try at it, and somehow, the code got reversed, so hte bot drove striaight backwards. so we are working quietly on the bot, when WHAM!!
the robot hits tyler again, and he grabs the robot and flips it over, thinking that it will go the other way...
well their auto mode at that point did the opposite thing IT CAME BACK AT TYLER AGAIN, its like it wouldnt stop! classic


i didnt hurt myself this year, amazingly!!

Greg

[tatsak42]

Deburring tools are sharp, 2 one inch cuts that bled pretty badly for a cut.
A smashed finger by not being ready for a chuck to come out of a mill.
On one of the ramps at nats, I tried to see how fast the cart would start going if I let it roll on one of the down ramps... I forgot I was in front of it, so therefore the lexan on the front gave me a 3 inch cut that I actually did not realize had bled until someone else pointed it out. Scar remains.
I also was the human player.. Put down two bins down fairly hard. Misjudged distance to ground. Head going down, bin bouncing up. Head pushing bin back down to the other bin. Bin not going any farther. $lip{condition}="cut and bleeding";
Surprisingly, the arm for our robot, that has a very major pinch/cut off finger joint did not claim any casualties.

[Alexander McGee]

Well, we had a few injuries this year. I have to say, one of them was me.

To start with my injury, I would like to thank the transmissions that we used. Well, i was assembelling one of them, and i hooked it up to a battery pack we have (basically a bosch drill housing with wires out the end, that we use to provide power for testing purposes). And, i was running one of the motors to see if i had it assemblled correctlly. I was also holding it in my hand while i did this. This would be the mistake. One of the gears slipped out, and caused a chain to swing freely. Well, my thumb got caught in that, and i lost the top of my thumb. Everything grew back by the time that i needed to use it. Took about a month.

A more serious injury happened to a guy named Mac. While we were testing our arms at Arizona, he was supporting them. One of our advisors was driving the robot. Anyways, Mac got his fingers caught between stages one and two of our arms. If you haven't seen out robot, theyres not a lot of clearance between those stages, an theyres a lot of power driving them. Mac got his hand crushed pretty bad. His fingers were black and blue for quite a while.

The other serious on that i can think of was this guy on our team named Joe. Everyone remember that really huge loading ramp at nats? And, if you've ever walked through our pits, you've seen our 1/2 ton snapon toolbox. Well, joe procedded to push this up that ramp. Needless to say, he threw out his back, and nearly killed himself and others when he lost controll. He spent the night in the Arizona State Hospital, and was released later the next day.

We all need to remember to be careful at these competitions. Danger lies in the most unexpected (and comical) places.

I've got a picutre of it here. Good Job Joe.

[Daniel Brim]

Originally posted by sigmakid108
P.S. DID ANYONE GET LOCKED INTO THEIR TEAM'S CRATE CAUSE I DID.

Yes, I indeed did, but it was on purpose. I was fixing the door so we could bolt it shut, and I was using the centerpunch to mark something (I don't remember what). We also locked Marygrace in there and forgot.

Now, on to our injuries. Only two that I can think of. First, a freshman was messing around with the grinder (grinding a tiny piece of aluminum) and ground the front of his left index finger off. At least this year (was a freshman) I knew common sense. The only other one (not totally robot related) is that a senior popped out her knee at the Arizona team social.

[sanddrag]

Originally posted by DanielBCR
First, a freshman was messing around with the grinder (grinding a tiny piece of aluminum) and ground the front of his left index finger off.

Ouch. But, it kind of makes sense because you're not supposed to grind aluminum anyhow.

[Beth Sweet]

Originally posted by sigmakid108

P.S. DID ANYONE GET LOCKED INTO THEIR TEAM'S CRATE CAUSE I DID. [/b]

Yeah, but it wasn't exactly accidental. It did on the other hand, make some very interesting film... We locked Jon in the crate while he was cleaning it. It was rather amusing.