Safely removing a level three climber

[Tem1514 Mentor]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Nichols

We are considering all of this in our design. Also don't forget that you need to power off the robot, not just the air, but the circuit breaker as well. Which means you need to be able to reach that from the ground as well.

I have been looking over the rules and don't see anything that says you can't have more then one main breaker.

Can anyone confirm this?

[tsaksa]

Originally Posted by FrankJ

So I guess a short drive team is out if you are trying for level 3 climb.

Rule G2 prevents teams from climbing on the pyramid. So teams will have to remove the robot while standing on the ground?

I worry that for some teams attempting the 3rd level climb this may inadvertently mean no female drivers this year. If our team were picking a drive team that needed to have the height and upper body strength to safely remove a high climbing robot, without even a step stool, most if not all of the women that were on our drive team last year would be at a significant disadvantage this year. I hope there is some serious consideration of how the inflexibility in this rule as currently stated might end up affecting some students.

[vhcook]

Originally Posted by tsaksa

I worry that for some teams attempting the 3rd level climb this may inadvertently mean no female drivers this year. If our team were picking a drive team that needed to have the height and upper body strength to safely remove a high climbing robot, without even a step stool, most if not all of the women that were on our drive team last year would be at a significant disadvantage this year. I hope there is some serious consideration of how the inflexibility in this rule as currently stated might end up affecting some students.

You get four people on drive team. Hopefully you'd only need two tall folks to lower the robot (Two people detach the robot from the pyramid, one person spots the first two, one person grabs the operator console and pulls the cart around for loading).

Originally Posted by Tem1514 Mentor

I have been looking over the rules and don't see anything that says you can't have more then one main breaker.

Can anyone confirm this?

You can only have one main breaker. R38 requires that the main breaker be connected exactly as shown, which prevents installing a secondary.

[FrankJ]

I read the unpowered to mean that you will not be able to enable the robot to lower it. Similar to past years. I can see the safety people requiring the robot to be powered off by the breaker though. I don't see anything that requires the venting of the pneumatic system. Depending on the design, that might be a way to lower your robot.

[Bob Steele]

Originally Posted by chi-town-biker

In addition to safety glasses, we’re going to issue hard hats to the four students.

We are going to be working with a trainer to figure out the best way to get our robot down. It will be practiced... we (like all teams) want to be safe

i would also add steel toed shoes/boots to your retrieval people. It might look funny but it works.

Hard hats are ok but I would be more worried about dropping the robot on a foot/feet.