Written by Kate Pilotte, Kit of Parts Manager, 2016 MAR 10
We’ve said that FIRST takes the safety of all participants seriously many times – and we do what we can to walk the talk. We implement systems and rules that mitigate the risk of someone getting hurt (e.g. safety glasses, taping/covering wires at events, publishing safety guidelines, etc.), and we encourage teams to do the same. We celebrate safety conscious behaviors with shout outs, pins, and awards.
We wouldn’t dare claim we can obliterate all risk – the FIRST Robotics Competition has some hazardous stuff: ~140 lb. electro-mechanical assemblies, uneven surfaces, power tools, but heck, I’ve even hurt myself on a toilet paper dispenser.
Our attention to safety is why we want to talk about a recent rogue robot. At an unofficial Week 0 event, there was an incident in which an autonomous robot broke through a field border and continued through a small crowd of people. Luckily, everyone in that crowd was paying attention and agile enough to get out of the way. There were no injuries.
There could have been though, and so we wanted to take this opportunity to highlight two important points.
Teams, remember that your robot can be disabled safely and quickly from your Operator Console computer.
If you’re not connected to an official FIRST
field and using our Driver Station Powered by NI LabVIEW, use the space bar on your driver station computer. Make sure that the space bar is labeled, everyone on the team knows this, and everyone has permission to disable the robot. http://www.firstinspires.org/sites/default/files/uploads/frc/Blog/rogue-robot16-2.png
If you’re hosting an off-season event, it’s essential that your field border is robust and contains robots effectively. If you don’t have a field border that can do this, please don’t have the event or don’t allow people anywhere near the field.
Teams, you can check to see if the hosts have provided an adequate border. If they haven’t, we recommend you help them improve it such that it will reliably contain robots or not participate. I know, this feels like a serious reaction; it’s appropriate.
My goal was to keep this short so people would read the whole thing. If you made it this far, I’ve succeeded. Now, do me a favor and read it again, and share it with your team.
Story Time!
In 2010 during practice at GSR, 40 accidentally hit Kate in the back of the head with a soccer ball. From what I was told it was the end of the match, the coach told the drive team to shoot, but they were turning, and fired off the field.
I was working that day and I get a frantic call from the coach (Dan, for those of you who remember him) who started the call with…
Dan: “Hey, what does Kate Pilotte like? Candy? Chocolate? Flowers?”
Me: “Oh God, what did you do now?”
<Dan explains the story I mentioned above>
After leaving the lab at about 8pm, the only place open was the local Stop & Shop, where I bought red and white roses (team 40 colors), and made a huge bouquet for her. I made the drive team give them to her before Opening with a huge apology that they practiced.
When I ran into her again about a month later I asked her how the flowers held up. She said they lasted a good 2 weeks, and she was super impressed.
So, in the end, be safe, and grocery store flowers are really hardy.
When I clicked on it, I thought this thread would be about robots slamming into the alliance station wall in Autonomous mode. I’ve seen 2 laptops go crashing to the ground. This is something that should be addressed at each event - both to teams crashing into the wall, and all teams to include velcro on their driver stations.
Our DS got a nice impact yesterday. The screen went black but the laptop kept working, not entirely sure what happened but we won the match so I guess it isn’t a big deal
This happened again today at the Greater DC event. During auto, our robot crashed through the side of the field, drove over a spare field element, and tried to attack people in the bleachers. Well, we did name it R.O.U.S…
all i’ve found was this: http://livestream.com/LeeHartman/GreaterDCEvent starting in the video second from the top at 7:49:00 ish
as one of the drivers of 449, lemme tell ya that was terrible to watch, esp since i programmed much of the robot…
Now that I’m less stressed to death by that incident, I’d also like to see a video of this from close up. I hear some people managed to get some video of it.
The reason the bot stayed rogue (as in, not estopped when it hit the wall) was due to a fault in the FMS and/or a faulty estop button (from what i heard at the event), so the FTAs spent the next hour or two trying to figure out what went wrong before they decided we’d replay the match later.
Big shoutout to the FTAs and volunteers at the Greater DC District at Walt Whitman. They were very nice and very transparent as to what was going on.
For the record, our auto was fixed and lets us cross almost all defenses (and only reactivated after thorough testing). I really like our portcullis auto too. especially now that we don’t break the field anymore.
The video shows it pretty well, but what happened in the corner was that 449 (with some help from that bot next to it) popped the plexiglass shield off the side of the field and then drove through under the guardrail (all in auto) and kept going until it hit the first row of bleachers.
I was just thinking that, in well over a decade of FRC, I’ve never seen a 'bot leave the field under its own power.
But then we’ve never had a game that drove the majority of robots to be shorter then the aluminum tube that makes up the ‘top’ of the field barrier. Combined with contemporary high power, high traction drive trains I’d guess a good impact from any of the many low robots would be enough to pop that panel out. I haven’t put together a field in a long time, so I don’t remember how those panels are secured, but I doubt it was ever expected to resist a 100+ pounds of robot at 10+ feet per second.
I have, but BEFORE the panels. In 2003, there were no panels. A team hung a left off of the ramp at a West Coast* regional in auto (in practice rounds) and was under the bleachers before someone E-stopped them.
And the panels are secured with zip ties. We lost one in San Diego; field fault was declared and the match was replayed.
*Well, close enough for those of you on the East Coast. It was actually in Arizona.
Weird. In my mind the panels have always been there. It’s all become a big blur.
Anyways, I took a quick look at the field drawings. There’s about a 14.25" gap between the bottom of the aluminum tube that makes up the top of the barrier and the top of the angle that makes up the bottom. The angle is a 3 inch leg, and there’s what I think is 72 inches between uprights give or take.
Basically, a lot of teams made robots perfectly sized to slip through that space and drive trains that’ll pop over that angle like it’s not there. The field barrier just looks like another defense to a robot in auto mode.
Yeah, I know the feeling. I think it was AFTER that match that steel cables were strung, or was that the previous field? Anyways, the Lexan made its appearance shortly after that year.
