were there robot related injuries on your team?

[Éowyn]

Well, I broached my thumb today . . . I now have a nice little 1/8" chunk out of my left thumb. There was more blood than I would've thought. 'Twas kinda gross.

Moral of the story? Pay attention while broaching keyways.

[Blue_Mist]

I can't remember all the injuries. I just know that whenever we work on the drive train late at night, we end up with all of these mysterious cuts, blood and grease on our hands. My hands have almost one scar per square inch by now, just from two years of late night chain adjusting and competitions.

My most notable injury was when our 2005 bot still worked and we let a non-member drive it at a recruitment demo. He started spinning with a heavy PVC tetra, copying our competition driver, and didn't raise the arm high enough. The tetra flew off, missed my best friend, and hit me square on the mouth, leaving a bruise for a week. We have never let a non-member drive with tetras since. Poof balls and ringers, yes. Tetras, no.

[=Martin=Taylor=]

Originally Posted by Blue_Mist

I can't remember all the injuries. I just know that whenever we work on the drive train late at night, we end up with all of these mysterious cuts, blood and grease on our hands. My hands have almost one scar per square inch by now, just from two years of late night chain adjusting and competitions.

My most notable injury was when our 2005 bot still worked and we let a non-member drive it at a recruitment demo. He started spinning with a heavy PVC tetra, copying our competition driver, and didn't raise the arm high enough. The tetra flew off, missed my best friend, and hit me square on the mouth, leaving a bruise for a week. We have never let a non-member drive with tetras since. Poof balls and ringers, yes. Tetras, no.

Lets not forget this humorous doozie.

[Blue_Mist]

Originally Posted by Hachiban VIII

Lets not forget this humorous doozie.

Oh, I remember it so well. It was last year; he has since graduated, but I was actually building something else at the time and only got to see the end result. He did stop by earlier in the season and inquire how things were going. Ironically enough, the '05 robot is actually the one in the background.

[Shivang1923]

got cut by metal, and a couple of bruises but nothing big

[purduephotog]

We did have an injury today. Apparently a student slipped outside in the ice and fell backwards while carrying a pizza.

Fortunately a number of other students witnessed the injury and rendered first aid- stabilizing the patient, assessing the damage, preventing further trauma, and finally, after determining the patient was OK, getting the patient up off the ground.

Into the team room they came, placing the immobilized victim on a table for further evaluation of the mentors. The mentors pronounced "Safe" and we all dug in to eat the pizza before it got any colder. There was some cheese damage to the top of the box but we let the vegetarian scrape it off.

About halfway through the students remembered Erik was still outside on the ground, so they went and brought him in too. A couple of Vault Cola's later and he was fine.

[Hiromi]

Well, funnily enough we have a phrase on our team; "pulling a Mladen". For example, I came close to losing a kidney with a jigsaw, and said "I almost just pulled a Mladen".

Last year, Mladen was using the drill press on a strip of steel, probably about 1mm thick, and instead of clamping it down deciding to hold on to it with bare hands. Well, the bit ripped the sheet out of his hand...or should I say through it? He came out with a significant amount of blood coming from his hands, having nearly severed two or three of his fingers. We still drill holes in sheet metal without vices for some reason...

[Bochek]

Originally Posted by Chris Sturrock

This year, there was an accident with a student and a lathe. She was working on the lathe, and while she was tightening the chuck, she forgot to take the chuck key out, and she also forgot to take her hand off the chuck key, before she turned the lathe on. she split her finger open almost all the way across, she lost her nail, and she broke the bone. she immedietly went to the hospital.

it is almost healed and she can help here and there now.

I have seen this happen, and it is not a pretty sight.

I almost did it once myself.

Hopefully she will recover fine.

- Bochek

[cgredalertcc]

Let me set the scene for you. A couple days into build season 1741 is working on an ingenious design to pickup the ball using a high volume vacuum. One of the captains (we have two) is using a makeshift cup made with about four inches of the top of a 5 gallon bucket and plywood plate to pick up the ball with an (extremely underpowered) 12 volt portable vacuum. Captain lifts ball vertically with the cup. No problem right? right. he then tries pivoting the ball up using the vacuum and at about forty five degrees from vertical he loses vacuum and the ball pops off. Well remember that whole for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction thing? The reaction in this case was him smacking himself with the plywood edge on the cup in his forehead. He hit himself hard enough that it made a cut in his forehead and he fell over.

I (because of the three stooges nature of the incident) began laughing hysterically and felt absolutely awful later on. It's too bad we don't have a video because it would be one of those things that you watch over and over and never cease to laugh when you see it.

[The Megan 2207]

It wasn't serious, but last year one of our team members (you know who you are, Stolte) drove the robot into my shins. We hadn't made bumpers yet and the temporary electrical board extended outside the chassis, so I had scraped, blackish-blue shins for a week or two.

[Otaku]

Resurrecting this thread with my own stupidity.

I was drilling some aluminium angle pieces for a quick mockup of our field. Had a hand-held dewalt power drill. My hair wasn't pulled back. Suddenly the power drill disappeared from my vision and the side of my head really, really hurt. Guess what happened?

To make things worse, I figured "put the drill in reverse and back it out slowly and there should be no issues". Finger twitches and the drill ends up jerking and hitting me in the head... again.

Took about 10 minutes for two of my teammates to get as much of my hair untangled as they could and cut the rest.

I ended up with two small open wounds on my left wrist (presumably where I had scraped against the vice) and a decently sized bald patch on the side of my head. The drill just ripped the hair clean out.


Previously mentioned drill-hair is now in a bag in our shop with one of my quotes ("If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is") written on it and it's hanging on the wall.

It was a good thing I had my safety glasses on -- upon further inspection, the drill bit nicked the lens right in front of my eye.

I had my hair pulled back constantly for the next few weeks and didn't go back into the shop for more than 5 or 10 minutes after that this year. Yes, it was THAT scary.

The moral of the story is (other than 'I am an idiot', anyways) make sure your hair is pulled back. always.

[ZInventor]

we were prototyping a ball-lift mechanism and needed to keep some string centered, so i suggested 16-gauge steel wire (art class stuff)...

later, while we were working, i was cutting a length of the wire off the spool, and it whipped back and tore my hand...

i was bleeding for a little bit, but luckily enough, it missed any major nerves, so it didn't hurt that bad.

i now have a permanent scar on the back of my hand, but that still hasn't convinced me to wear gloves in the shop...

however, i have good reason:

at the local community college, where i learned machine shop skills, one of the students (college) was wearing gloves while working on a lathe, and when he reached in to brush away a burr, it grabbed his hand and tore off three fingers.

now, he has a thumb and pinky, but no index, middle or ring finger.

he was rushed to the hospital, but they couldn't do anything since his gloves were covered in so much grease and dirt.

moral of the story:

NEVER wear gloves!!! (At PCC (the community college) you are now banned from wearing gloves unless you are changing a band saw blade.)

i know too many people with missing fingers to wear gloves, or brush away burrs with the machine running (i usually use burr-breaking cutters)

-Z

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by ZInventor

words talking about a lathe injury
-Z

After getting my hair caught in a power drill, I've become increasingly more afraid of the lathe.

A power drill you can stop quickly.

A lathe, you can't.

[Wayne TenBrink]

In 2007 I was cutting a strip of 1/16 aluminum on the table saw. It got wedged between the fence and table, and kicked back. It hit me near the front pocket of my jeans (way too close...), cut through, bounced off me, and hit a student in the leg, where it also drew bit of blood. Other than a cut, large bump, and an ugly bruise, no permanent damage was done.

I saved the mangled piece of aluminum for safety show & tell.

[gorrilla]

the first day of our 2008 build season(monday after the kickoff)
We were cleaning and rearanging our basement/shop and someone(zach) unbolted the vice from the table without telling anyone-and I went to move the table and the vice fell off nearly "removing" my foot from my leg