Tackle that person with no safety glasses

[Jon Lawton]

I always thought it *really* dumb that the teams were placed behind .5" worth of polycarbonate sheet, and had to wear safety glasses, while the judges, referees, and feild crew were placed *closer* to the robots, with no protection, and did *not* have to wear glasses. That's a good example to set.

Also, like was mentioned before, I believe the rule book only states that glasses must be worn while *working* on the robot. That makes sense to me. If FIRST really is paranoid enough to want people to wear safety glasses as long as they are anywhere on FIRST grounds, perhaps they should revise the rule book!

Just my thoughts...

[Ameya]

Originally posted by Erin Rapacki
...at UTC, they reminded everyone about it every 10 minutes over the pit intercom, but nobody personally approached you to remind you to put them on.

Hehe, the guy making the announcement at UTC was maybe 10 feet behind our spot in the pit, and every time he made that announcement, he looked right at us and our bare eyes.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

I can't remember anyone on the field not wearing safety glasses. I can tell you that during one post season (Rumble at the Rock, Plymouth, Mass.)a robot was forced out and over the playing field border just missing a field attendant. So, it is important that anyone near the field needs to be wearing glasses.
Al

[pryoplasm]

as for what was done that was a bit overboard, at the SoCal regional, i think it was the second or third day, if someone was in your pits without safteys on, your team would have 10 pts deducted from your next match. i am not sure if it was ever enforced, but i still think its too harsh

as for times when safteys not only didnt help, but actually made it worse, well, during a mini meet 2 years ago, a human player was on the field resetting it, he got nailed in the head with a soccer ball; his glasses shattered and cut open his eyebrow requiring him to go to the hospital and getting stitches. also, when a friend of mine was working on a tape drive, something malfuntioned and the tape got wedged under his safteys, scratching his cornea, however because of the safteys he could not immediatley get it away and suffered the wrath of saftey goggles...

[Jay H 237]

Wow, did this thread get resuscitated!

Well anyway, at the UTC regional on Saturday a FIRST volunteer was walking around and actually going into the pits reminding everyone to wear safety glasses. I was there when he came into our pit and checked on us. I don't know if that was a one time thing or if he kept walking around (I was only there on Saturday).

[Koko Ed]

I was told that if a team igonores the safety glass warning enough they can be penalized by taking away points.
I work on a factory floor and they won't penalize you or scold you.
They will fire you.
Before I started working at Xerox a guy on a neighboring line took his own eye out with a screwdriver. I'm just glad I never witnessed it.
I'm bringing my own pair of safety glasses from work. Just to be safe.

[Andrew Rudolph]

At ucf they had the 10 point penalty in effect, i too donot know of any cases of this rule being enforced, but overal wearing safety glasses is a must. Ive heard and seen some pretty nasty things that have happened because people refused to wear saftey glasses. If its really that big of a deal for you to not wear saftey glasses then you shouldnt be in the pit, just like Jay said, in the workplace when you are on the floor of a shop you are REQUIRED to wear saftery glasses. On our team we had each student order thier own pair of glasses, so they all got to pick out ones they liked. It worked really well because after that they never had an excuse or really complained.

[Marygrace]

(In response to the post bout the SoCal regional)

Yeah, at LA, we got ten points taken off the next match if you were caught without safety glasses. The sad part about this was, i dont think it was enforced fully. I only saw one match get penalized for it, while everyone else got warnings. It sux for the one team i saw get points taken away, because not everyone else that violated the rule did.

[10intheCrunch]

In Sacramento 10 point penalties in the next round were threatened for not wearing safety glasses. I'm not sure if any penalties were ever administered, though.

[EvanG]

While I generally wear my safety glasses constantly (I tend to forget i'm wearing them), the control placed on them at Philly bordered on insane. There was a volunteer who constantly walked through our area of the pit screaming at us to get them on.

On two seperate occasions, I remember being yelled at. Once, I was 6-10 feet from any pits, leaning against a wall, head down reading some papers. Alright, fine. The part that really got to me was the time she yelled at one of our engineers who has prescription safety glasses about it. When he explained that his glasses could probably take a hit better than the safety glasses we wore, she told him that he should still put some on because he forgot his side shields. Since I wasn't doing anything on the bot, I gave him mine, but then she personally escorted me out the door of the pits, outside. It was insane.

I understand the importance of the glasses, but a kind reminder that FIRST is not responsible for the loss of your eyes would have done instead of the screaming.

[Christian D]

I can't stand those people that just hover around your pit looking to take ten points away from you!!!

[Jessica Boucher]

When I was volunteering at NYC in field setup I was asked to keep my safety glasses on at all times....and then later, told to put them back on after I hadn't remembered to put them back on my nose

[UlTiMaTeP]

I just heard that FIRST made a purchase of 150 Taser guns from Taser International. Anyone in a pit without glasses is going to get a sharp sudden reminder.

[jrgrim12]

I yelled at our students all the time to get there glasses on. It doesn't matter if you are working on a robot or just sitting in the pits you could still get hurt. You have teams all around you working on their robots. They use dremels, drills, saws, etc. if one of the blades breaks it can travel far! Trust me I've seen it. I've seen broken cut off wheels travel well over 100 feet and tag someone in the chest. It cut thru his apron, shirt and into his skin. He was okay. So I can't say I blame them for being stricked about this. You may thank them the next time something comes and hits your glasses. I have to wear saftey glasses every day and I am happy to wear them. My saftey glasses get hit at least once a day with something and let me tell you, you can't move fast enough. This is one of the most important saftey rules they have. So I guess I don't see what the problem is. If you are in the pits others are working even if you aren't so put on your glasses. If you say they hurt or they make me sweaty then just talk to someone who lost their eye and see what they say.

[pauluffel]

At the Peachtree they weren't too aggravated about getting people to wear their glasses, and I didn't hear anything about a 10-point penalty. One of the best motivators I used for our team to get them to wear their glasses was reminding them that on Thursday morn one of the Inspectors came by and thanked me for having our entire team in the pits wearing saftey glasses because so few people actually had their glasses on in the pits.