This is my 2nd year as Safety Captain for team 3525, The Nuts and Bolts of Fury. I’m trying really hard to advance in safety and a few tips from anyone about Industrial Safety Award/pit safety/team safety would be GREATLY appreciated. Thank you in advance :]
-Taylor from FRC 3535
The number 1 in my opinion is having a neat pit. Neat means orderly which means safe. Things such as having a fire extinguisher and battery spill kit in the pit also help a lot.
To be clear neither of these things helps you actually be safe.
If you’re referring to them helping a lot with the farce that is the safety award, that’s another story.
At least for what I have noticed from Indiana teams, the teams make it clear that mistakes happened and they learned how to both fix it and prevent it from happening again. That’s the best way
Yup! That’s one of the major things my team, Team 1257 did. I’m the current safety captain of my team and we didn’t really have any structured program for a couple years, until me and a senior safety captain started working together. Some of the things we did was improve upon an existing safety quiz by making different versions and giving thorough demonstrations of power tools and other machinery, create an injury form for documentation, having machinery condition checks for the most used tools at the end of every week of build season, and having 2 first aid kits (one for pit and one for stands) during competition.
Another thing our team created was a system where every year, safety glasses are bought for the new members, but if they lose or break them it’s on them to purchase a new pair. It teaches a lot of responsibility and from what I’ve seen it makes everyone really conscious of when to wear and have their safety glasses.
As for the award, I don’t think there’s any tricks to it. Team 1257 was awarded the Industrial Safety Award twice in a season, and I think the vital thing is showing progression in the safety culture of your team. When I was presenting to the judges, I was able to tell them stories of really bad preventable incidents, of how we implemented different strategies to reduce the possibility of preventable injuries, and the overall changes our team has experienced.
Of course, you should definitely have things like a fire extinguisher and a battery spill kit in the pit like Hitchhiker 42 mentioned. But it’s even better for you if you can think of different ways to promote safety within your team during competition!
Hope this helps and PM me if you need any further help!
That’s exactly what I was referring to.
Hello, I am the safety captain for team 2930. A great way to improve your safety program is to talk with all of the other teams at the event. Our team has multiple safety captains, and while one always stays in the pit, the other one is going around chatting with the other teams and learning some good advice. We also hunt down the safety judges to see where we can improve at the end of the competition.