When the 2013 FRC Safety Manual going to be released? How does your team instill safe habits into your members?
The safety manual has been released here: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/safety-video-and-manual
How do we implement safety into our team? Read my post here for our training program as well as a few tips for running your own. 
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=110284&
I’d also suggest looking into these principles if you haven’t already.
- Lock-Out-Tag-Out
- MSDS
- Fire Extinguishers
- Battery Safety
- Basic First Aid
- Toyota’s 5’s principle (my personal favorite because everything in safety boils down to this)
- Mind’s Eye
- Job Safety Risk Assessment
- Body fluid spill procedures
- Robot and battery inspection procedures
- Right and wrong types of PPE
The one on FIRST’s website is last year’s.
The FIRST/UL safety manual really doesn’t change from year to year that much other than the cover design and even that sometimes doesn’t change. It stayed the same for several years until two years ago when they changed the judging process but otherwise it’s essentially the same manual as safety procedures don’t change a whole lot.
As you know by now the FIRST 2013 Safety Manual is out. On Team 78 AIR Strike we use both the FIRST Manual and a more comprehensive Safety Operating Plan (SOP) of our own. All students must receive an annual safety briefing, take a test on the material AND sign a Worker’s Statement agreeing to work safe. Many teams do similar and if you don’t, it would be a good idea to start. Have a fun & safe season.
Thank you for the advice. Unlike most other teams, it just seems too difficult to have sub-teams because our members don’t read the rules or actually read the weekly e-mails we send out. So in the end its just the 10 few people who design/ build the robot. But, a lot of our members come to competition and they are clueless about what’s going on. Any ideas on how to stop this madness?! I think this is mostly a result of us not doing anything until January.
Ouch! That sounds like a system in desperate need of revision. It certainly helps to keep tabs on the team during the off-season with team-building events like a team picnic, field trips, volunteering at FLL and VEX events, attending off-season competitions, fundraising, building challenges, website building, ultimate frisbee days (quite pertinent this year), community awareness outreach (the lightbulb sales actually work quite well. Out team was skeptical but tried it this year with incredible results), presentations at sponsors both returning and potential, bringing your robot to county fairs and things like that, and what ever your team likes to do together 
During the season, it really helps if you keep attendace and have benefits for members who attend. For instance, our team is waaaaay to big to travel with everyone (we have about 80 members) so if they don’t attend meetings, they take a hit on consideration for traveling team. Once they learn how fun FIRST is, hopefully they’ll keep coming back and if students outside of the team learn it’s fun, they’ll want to join too (hence our large team size :P)
My first step, if I were in this situation, would be to put out a survey to your members and ask them what you could do to interest them in robotics more. Then, have another survey in your school and see how many students have actually heard of your robotics program. Things like posters on the walls, pictures in classrooms, posted tournament dates, and things like that can quickly raise awareness. Our team even has a scrolling marquee sign above the robotics room with our meeting times, tournament dates, and encouragements to join. I’d try some of those ideas to start down the path toward a large, excited team
It seemed odd that at the Kickoff there was no mention of safety, or where to find the manual. And they didn’t announce the winner of the safety animation contest (as they had done in previous Kickoffs)
I assume FIRST had to cut out a lot of stuff to fit the 60-minute format, but I would think Safety is the last thing you want to ignore.
Been there! this year is the first year we actually became a full year team. As a result, we put a handbook together and are making sure that the kids follow the rules. Before it had always been a bit…wild wild west with kids showing up to just hang out with their friends and not do anything. Now we have a solid core group of kids who want to be there, and that may be our whole team, as we didn’t have many new kids come to kickoff this year. The kids were the ones who pushed for this - they wanted robotics to become more then it was. Let your core kids take the lead.
We have a facebook page and a twitter, and I send out weekly emails. I try to include as many parents as possible too because kids don’t always read their emails, but over time once they realized that’s the way the information has been coming, they’re better about it.
I second asking your students what they think will get the team more motivated - the answers may surprise you.
Good luck, feel free to shoot me a message with any questions you might have. The growing pains of going from a strictly build-season team to a full-year team were totally worth it and what we did accomplish this fall was more then we ever dreamed or expected.
Edited to add: We make our kids read the rules by telling them there’s going to be a quiz on it sometime in the season. They also have to have all their forms (health form, etc) in before they can participate and take a safety test before they’re allowed to do anything.