Hey guys, I’m the safety captain on Team 1257 Parallel Universe. There isn’t a forum dedicated to safety, so I’m just posting in the general forum (sorry!).
I’m making certification badges for all the members of our team, so we (members and mentors) can know for example who is certified in what (e.g. use of electronics tools). It’ll be helpful for everyone to learn from each other and for the captains of each subteam.
I’ve attached a draft I drew up before the school year ended, but I’d like to know your recommendation as to what would be the best material to make the badges out of. I have no expertise in this area at all and would really appreciate your help.
Does your school issue plastic ID badges? If so see if they can print them for you. Otherwise the best option is probably to print them on a business card template and laminate them
Now, I have zero experience in these things. But it seems to my untrained eye that there should be more space for multiple certifications on the same card. That way, one person won’t have to carry around a dozen cards.
Yeah I thought of that too! But I don’t think our school would let us because they’re more of the “you can do it yourself” kind of school. But i’ll ask them again
I’m not trying to put this idea down here, don’t get me wrong at all. But how feasible does everyone else thing this idea is? While I personally think its cool, how many people will actually keep up with it and etc. Just pointing that out, thats all :D.
So much depends on your budget. I would recommend white “credit card stock”, either directly printed or bearing “name badge” labels. I fully concur that specific certifications should be modular on a single badge. You should consider stick-on paper/plastic labels, jewels (color coded), and custom brass images with pin backs. Your answer will probably like somewhere along this spectrum. Another possibility is to hang certifications below the name tag proper, rather like military ribbons.
I was thinking something like heavy cardstock would work, although they would have to reprint them fairly often. That would make it less cost if kids lose them, however, especially if you have to outsource printing on plastic.
Photo paper might last a bit longer, although I’m not sure on that.
Some companies do plastic card printing, online. Starting with that and using cardstock replacements in cases of losing them could be a good idea.
Our team tried this a few years ago and it was quickly dropped. The failure of the system might have been because of a flaw in the concept itself, or it may have been because the decision to implement the badges came from higher up and didn’t have the suppourt of the student leadership. YMMV.
My rookie year, my team was housed in a facility that required a card to key into the building. When students can’t get into the building without them, students keep track of them. As for the OP’s situation, I doubt that their badges are literally what gets them in the doors, but this sorta thing is just a team specific decision. No way to say if the students will keep them or not.
Though, in my experience, mild public humiliation can be a pretty big motivator when you need it. At times, my Safety Captain has stuck a big yellow sign on the back of anyone caught working without their safety glasses, and the sign couldn’t be removed until the end of the build session. The team makes sure to give anyone with the sign a hard time (all in good fun) and it cuts down on repeat offenders. The OP can try something of a similar nature for people who forget their badges.
Responding to the OP’s guestion: can you 3D Print them? You mentioned having 30-40 people so that may be difficult, but if you could print thin card with their certifications on them, it shouldn’t take too long. And when members’ certifications change, you reprint it. Or you can get really fancy and design a piece that clips onto members’ safety glasses or their key chains and has designations for their level of certification. (Yes, I will try to 3D Print anything and everything.)
It really depends on your resources and what you want to make of it.
If you are actually looking to track who is trained in what, you are going to want all of the information in a centralized location. I recommend Google Sheets. The badges may be cool, but if the team leadership every wants to find out everyone who is qualified in something, they are not going to run around your team looking at everyone’s badges, they are going to look at a spreadsheet. If you want everyone on the team to know who is qualified in what, I recommend posting lists on the wall above the respective tools/areas. It’s a lot easier to look at the wall than at someone’s badge and it is a lot more obvious when someone is using a tool they shouldn’t be that way.
Might depend on the size of the team. Personally, I think its a bit overkill for small teams, but to each their own. Seems like it could get really bothersome sometimes (where’s X?! He’s the only one on the team who’s certified to do this!!)
I would personally think a poster size board in the shop area with a matrix of the students and certifications might be easier to maintain, and more importantly visible.
The lead shop mentor could be responsible for all approvals (initial or stamp) . This would also give visibility to students that would benefit from some time be checked out on additional tools.
In my view; it’s all about giving the students to opportunity to broaden their skill set in a safe manner.
Thanks to everyone who responded! My mentor and I discussed that we’d use a 2 layer acrylic that we can laser engrave. That way, we won’t have to make new ones so often and we can just put it back in to add more certs if necessary.
I’m going to be working on fixing the design actually, because there’s some unnecessary stuff that can be deleted for more space and quite frankly it’s kinda of hard to read at first glance without taking time to read it.
Oh cool! I’ve thought it out, and the support of the other student leaders is going to be essential for the whole thing to not fade and drop. For our team, I think having the cert badges is going to help a lot when it comes to organization (something we’ve improved upon soo much) and can become something beneficial in future years.
My mentor is on the cert badge train with me;she’s supporting it! One of the good things about our team (not trying to brag or anything) is that whenever a member has an idea, our team mentors allow us to experiment and get hands on with things (as long as it’s not too far-fetched). But if the whole thing fails, it’ll be a lesson learned
You’re right, the badges aren’t the keys to our shop haha
OMG wow your Safety Captain is savage. We’ve had a few incidents in the past and I tell the stories every year which I think lowkey works as a scare tactic, and isn’t really anyone being caught not wearing safety glasses while working in the machine shop. Thanks for the idea! I’ll keep it in mind
Hahaha i love your enthusiasm for 3D printing I mentioned in another comment that my mentor and I decided that we’d be using acrylic and laser engraving it.
