Blood, sweat, & tears.

[burkey_turkey]

we are usually pretty safe with our tools and have had no major injuries since i joined the team. the biggest thing thats happened is one team member who was drilling last year, as the bit exited the other side and got stuck, caused the drill to twist really fast and it ate up her knuckles and the whole backside of her hand pretty bad. the mark was about to disapear completely form her hand this year when she came close to doing the same thing again. bad luck.

[Gabe]

Some time ago I was welding steel with my torch and placed it to cool next to an identical piece. Walked away for chalk and came back to mark the piece of metal "HOT", but I marked the wrong piece (the cool one). I took off my gloves and picked up the red hot piece of steel that looked cool in the daylight. I got badly burned.

[Neo3One3]

A team member who graduated last year visited and was reminiscing about the cut he got on his hand from the robot last year and had to go off and get stiches, and he reached to the robot, said "Yeah it was right her--**** it! Get the first aid kit!"

[Barry Bonzack]

I am just amazed Tytus hasn't chimed in.

I've been fortunate on my team, not one major accident to date. My finger came awfully close to a jigsaw this year though when I was holding back some wires while another mentor was cutting lexan off the bot. I did more damage to my wrist by yanking my hand out of the robot as quickly as I could; it caught on an edge that was not filed quite enough. 'Tis but a scratch, merely a fleshwound, I've had worse.

[Arille]

The 'most serious' injury from our team this year (although in the grand scheme of things, is nothing compared to getting a couple staples to your head) probably could have been prevented.. we had a couple people on our team try to take out keyang terminals from the terminal housing the correct way, but we didn't seem to go anywhere, and then someone had an idea to be "creative". mentor with needle nose pliers on the terminal pulled, and I (yeah... ) held onto the housing... the terminal eventually came out, but also left a geometrically perfect cut that we all thought I'd need stitches for, but it ended up being alright.

The cuts look like brackets [ ] and now when people see it, they ask me, "Robotics?" My response: "Yep, battle scars."

It's a nice souvenir from Rookie year, I guess.

[s_forbes]

With all of the safety discussions that go on in these forums, I'm pretty suprised at how many injuries there are during build season!

I wasn't present during the entire robot build session, but I'm pretty sure our team didn't spill a single drop of blood.

[rachal]

We are usually pretty safe, I don't think there has been anything worse than minor cuts and scrapes in the history of the team, but there are tons of those.

While using our CNC minimill, I forgot to turn on the coolant for some reason. I finally noticed it was making worse noises than usual and ran to turn on the coolant. In the process, I accidentally touched the piece of aluminum I had been milling. Obviously, it was really hot, so I rubbed my hand on my shirt and burned my skin through the shirt. Ouch.

The first time our president got cut by a sharp edge on the robot, he yelled, "Yes! Now my blood, sweat, and tears are all on this robot!" All of the mechies, myself included, now have blood somewhere on the robot...

Another time, we were all really tired after cadding and fabricating the whole day but we were still working on the drivetrain. One guy, less awake than the rest of us, decided to test if a piece of key stock was sufficiently filed by slashing it down his wrist. Apparently, it stung a lot

Ohh, and last year when we worked on sheet metal we were just covered in cuts. One mechie (same one that slashed his arm with a key) went outside to work on a big piece of sheet metal, and when he was done, his shirt was a different color.

[hayakuneko]

I was handed a soldering iron with the hot tip pointing towards me... stupidly I wasn't looking when I went to grab it cuz i was too concentrated on the wires... *sigh*





i couldn't move my hand for about 15 minutes... after I soaked it in a nearby kiddy pool for 15 more minutes...

[Mr. Freeman]

We've never had anything too serious, this was probably the worst injury on our team this year. I was making a small hover bot out of some foam core, plastic bag, and two of the big fans included in the kit. I found that there were two types of big computer-case-type fans, the ones with a metal housing and the ones with a plastic housing. I also noticed that the plastic ones had a higher rating for the amount of power they would use so I, of course, used those.

I hooked one of the fans up to a power supply and that caused the hover bot to start to hover and move towards the edge of the table. My first reaction was to grab the bot to stop it from falling and I reached for one of the fans, which then sliced a piece of the side of my finger off. Fortunately, the power supply overloaded and cut the power when my finger caused the fan to stop spinning so I guess it could have been worse. The skin eventually grew back, but I do have a small divot there.

[Tytus Gerrish]

Originally Posted by Barry Bonzack

I am just amazed Tytus hasn't chimed in.

its like on mythbusters when they don't let you know anything about the explosives so you cant make them yourself and blow yourself up. im keeping my mouth shut

[Total Meltdown]

Reminds me of a time - my Freshman year on Northern Force (I graduated last year)

One of my classmates - another newbie at the time - was being cool and showing off and stuff, and decided to jump up and hang from the entrance door to the warehouse we were working in.

Surprise! The door was lined with sheet metal. Stuff cut right into the poor guy's fingers, and the whole ordeal didn't get much when he let go. Ended up with a nicely bandaged hand for a month or two.

Not really construction, but it does teach an interesting lesson about showing off, especially in environments like these

[RyanN]

I don't think we've had any "injuries" since 2005. We are very cautious when we use our tools and when driving the robot. Usually we get minor scratches from reaching into the robot with all the sharp endings on the zip ties and with fibers of glass and carbon itching. Hopefully it stays this way forever. I'm not aware of any injuries since 2001, but I cannot speak on behalf of the team before 2005.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by RyanN

I don't think we've had any "injuries" since 2005. We are very cautious when we use our tools and when driving the robot. Usually we get minor scratches from reaching into the robot with all the sharp endings on the zip ties and with fibers of glass and carbon itching. Hopefully it stays this way forever. I'm not aware of any injuries since 2001, but I cannot speak on behalf of the team before 2005.

This is a good post. Practicing caution and using common sense with tools, machines, robots and build will prevent many injuries. Safety captains are not just for competition, they should be that set of eyes and ears in the shop that helps the team stay in top form/on top of their game - keeping safety at the forefront.
Jane

Edit: I thought a little bit more - everyone is responsible for keeping the team in top shape and keeping safety a priority - both as individuals and as a team. Accidents can and do happen but can be kept at a minimum with the use of caution, common sense, and vigilance. Precaution helps safety glasses and captains do their job.

[IMac]

No real big ones during build, but at the Philly Regional we had a few. The worst I had were a few slips of the screwdriver that ended in blood. One of our girls tho was cutting with a dremel using a disc attachment, slipped, and ran it across her hand. Not a straight shot but a few skips. I didn't find out about it till later that day because she immediately wrapped a bandana around it and kept working.

[Pirate_Nelly354]

We don't really have "totally-emergency-accidents" in our team.
Just the little cuts.
But this year we did have a small fire.
Some cables or something got into where our batteries were charging....
Not a good mix
But it wasn't a big fire, the smoke cleared away and most importantly, no one was hurt!
Ovell, the driver, saved the day!
While the rest of us were like O_O he put it out! =]