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I don't think this has been done before but anyway---------- any one got any stories of a close incounter with nearly getting serously hurt whilst making or testing a robot?
i've only really got the time i was grinding something whilst wearing saftey glasses -not goggles and a stray spark got behind them and it only just missed my eye.
any one else?
There is a video somewhere of Lee testing GMan, and getting caught, I think that Stu made the video, should still be about somewhere.
DaveMac.
I once had an accident when working on Storm Force in my garage
I had it propped up on its back end as I was taking it off the cradle, After I removed the cradle from underneath, I was going to lower SF down slowly onto its wheels, but when lowering it, I accidently dropped it and it landed on my poor toe! :uhoh: I can remember I was jumping about on one foot in the garage shouting and swearing. I was worried as I was going to a ceilidh the same week but luckilly my toe wasn't broken.
WJ has had the closest death
theres a video of it the flipper fired and was just 2 close to his head
ill have a look for the video but if any1 else has it upload it :)
pretty sure it was WJ
Stepped over MightyMouse and my ankle gave way and fractured a bone in three places. :shock: :shock: :shock:
Fired the flipper on Velocirippa when it was on a workmate - forgot the rule that every force has an opposing force - and broke all the legs on the workmate, dumping the machine on the floor. :uhoh: :uhoh: :uhoh:
A few weeks ago I pulled the battery connections off Meggamouse, it was a bit tight so gave it a good tug, when it released my arm caught the flipper support and the flipper arm came down on my other arm. The bone still has a big lump on it. :oops: :oops: :oops:
It was, twice. Once during the build, once in Rijswijk as he walked away from the robot.Quote:
Originally Posted by john
Who was it that got knocked out by a flipper in Newark?
St Agro That was
Cant remember his name atm
Terry Carlin was the one who got knocked out by St Agro.
Terry explained what happened when we bought it off him last year.
Apparrently he was arming up St Agro in the usual way, rx switch on, link in, close dump valve, turn on gas and drive across the arena...
...however, when he went to drive it over to the other side of the arena it refused to move. He noticed that the rx switch was in the off position, it hadn't been switched off from the previous fight and when arming up he had switched it off. He flicked the switch which turned on the electronize switch which fires the flipper. The flipper fired and due to the design, the whole robot flips over so it hit him and knocked him out.
Since we heard about this incident we have changed the arming up procedure for Maelstrom so that this should never be able to happen again, we always lock the flipper open while arming up so that the worst that could happen is that the flippers try to crush the restraint.
Do we really want these types of stories live on a public forum? :?
Yes, because it just stresses what can easily happen if you dont take proper precautions.
If it helps to remind us always to take care, and offer a chance for people to see where accidents could happen and allow them to safeguard against them then I don't see why it'd be a bad thing to have such info on here.
Yes the forum is viewed by the general public, those who are interested in joining in the sport, but surely we can't keep it all perfectly painted as a lovely hobby free from people having personal differences or accidents occuring. That'd be giving them an altered perspective of things. Having discussions such as this keeps us aware of the dangers that are always involved with combat robots
EDIT: What Grant said :)
I havent had any close shaves in my time building, but I did read a similar thread years ago with about a guy who was building a FBS (Which names I cant remember), and he had put his bot on a workingbench just about so the robot was leveled to his stomache. He had a spin test and the robot goes beserk and cuts up, and you might have guessed it, his stomache.
He survived though. Some might remeber this one better then I do, so fill in if somethings missing.
This are the stories that makes me a bit more conscious when it comes to weaponed 'bots.
Near misses ? .. plenty! Though I forget most of them lol.
Probably my most scary personal encounter was when testing Rottweiler 2's weapon for the first time. It was a 12 abrasive angle grinder disc powered by a flymo engine. Back then I didnt have the tools or skills to make the necessary modifications myself so I gave the complete flymo strimmer to a local lawnmower repair place and asked them to shorten the pole and attach the disc close to the engine.
So I got it back when they'd finished and it looked the part so I bolted it to the frame of the robot and started up the engine. Revved it up to top speed and in a blink of an eye the disk came detached from the rotor, bounced off the robot frame and missed me by a few cm.
Upon closer inspection it turns out that their method of attaching the disc was simply to sandwich it between a washer and the original strimmer head. Clearly this wasnt up to the task of securing a big cutting disc as well; I'm guessing they didnt test it themselves before handing it over to me. :rofl:
i was a bit rough getting a nicad ut of my FW , it had tamiya connectors and the 2 prongs just pulled staright out of the casing and welded themselves togethor ,i didnt dare touch it as i could see the insulation burning off! , in the end it stopped when the solder melted on on of the cells , wait , what tempreture does solder melt at!!!
caught my thumb in a gearbox and crushed my nail
Burnt a thread into my hand after grabing a 20mm bolt id just welded
burnt a piece of coper wire into my thumb after it shorted across two battery terminals
set my leg on fire
set my hair on fire
had turbulence's flipper go off when i was turning the gas on
had a pneumatic pipe burst infront of my face
had a fw's flipper fire onto my forehead and nock me out (first flipper- good job it was rubbish)
stuck my hand to a cold co2 bottle
droped a heavyweight on my toe n broke it
saw my robot drive itself of a pit bench (before fw's had to have links)
not bolted metal down on the pillar drill properly and sliced my thumb open when its snaged
had coolant go in my eye
.. i could go on but ive chosen to forget about alot of them, and im ALOT more cautious now :)
Let mouldy in our workshop :proud:
stagefright.(enough said)
Your toe or the heavyweight? :lol:Quote:
droped a heavyweight on my toe n broke it
toe.
woo , thats a lot of close shaves !!
Not a robotic based close shave but when soldering an electronics project, a friend decided it would be a good idea to sneak up behind me and scare me. I dropped the soldering iron and (rather stupidly) caught it by the very hot bit.
Slashed my finger open with a Stanley knife the morning before AWS29
Ripped some of my hair out when it got caught around a manic robot's wheel :P
There's probably going to be more...
i don't know about everyone else, but i would say my most common robot related injury is cutting myself on sharp edges, like on TJ2 i've got a steel plate- ground down to a VERY flat edge and after fights when its not safley covered up im always slicing my fingers on it.
also it hurts when you drive a robot into your legs because you get a bit carried away with driving it at home :proud:
had Tanto knock me over while testing in my garden twice,
Nicad fire at folkestone ( I seemed the only one willing to get my hands in the robot while the cells were popping),
LiPo exploxed in my hand after fighting at an AWS,
loss of feeling in my left wedding finger at microbotics back in 02????,
dislocated ankle from new feather i built,
had to duck out the way of a flipped robot (HW) while testing,
at robot wars series 6 qualifying was electricuted by a dodgey charger while trying to fit failsafes to someone elses robot, shared a room with John Lear Snr in Ireland,
met Mike Lambert and the closest I ever came to death with a robot was when me and Jonno drove Kan Opener after a ''few'' drinks at billing in the middle of the night
:rofl:Quote:
shared a room with John Lear Snr in Ireland
I've done the usual, grabbed the wrong end of the soldering iron, cut myself on various sharp edges etc.
Dropped a robot onto my fingers sharp-ended wedge first when I was trying to put it on a shelf in the YH bedroom at the UKRG 05 finals and it slipped out my grasp.
Hacksawed into my finger when I was trying to cut off a boss on a metal bike gear while having it clamped in a pair of mole grips, which was held by my hand.
Dremel-sawed into my finger when I was cutting plastic gears off a small model shaft.
Drilled a nice 3mm hole in my hand when rush-fitting the self-righting hoops on Drumroll the day before the UK champs last year.
The majority of injuries were sustained before I got a workbench to work on.
Haven't really done anything else major in a long time - I think I'm due a big screw-up soon :uhoh:
I broke a nail picking up Small Torque out of the arena :proud:
.got my finger jammed in a randomly spinning drill motor
.got my finger jammed in a spinning sd200
sliced my finger on a bandsaw
.sliced my finger on a Stanly knife blade
dropped a fw on my hand and broke a finger :(
my finger aint doing too well :(
just last night i had to much solder on the end of the soldering iron , so being an idiot , i tried to shake it off , i covered my arm in tiny blobs of molten metal , it hurt lol.
you get used to that
the worst is when your next to my dad working, he doesnt care your there and he will just go mms away from you, burn or cut you he dont care lol
My most common injury at the moment is sticking my finger into hot melt glue (making an antweight). I don't know why but even though I know it hurts my first action when I'm using it seems to be to shove my finger into it :angry:
Anyway, I have a totally irrational problem with needles and injections and it's not that I'm scared of them, it's a subconcious thing.
I managed to mangle my finger when I was drilling one of the brackets for Hydras CO2 bottle. Usual thing wrapped itself around the drill with my finger in it. Nice bleeder and it was pouring out. Managed to get it to stop bleeding and it looked quite nasty so thought I might have to go to hospital for it so I wrapped some insulation tape round it, finished off what I was doing and then off I went about two hours later. Nurse looked at it, gave me a rollocking for getting it dirty and covered it in iodine. Got out the tetanus jab and then preped my arm. Next thing I know I came round with head between my knees and the nurse wetting herself. Couldn't believe that I could do something like that, carry on working, not complain about the antiseptic which stung like hell and then keel over with a little injection :rofl: :rofl:
Andy
its weird , hot glue isa lot less hot than solder , but the hot melt glue burns i have have really scared compared to the soldering iron burns.
I think we should all just give up robots and go play chess for a hobby :rofl: :rofl: less dangerous
Your not on your own there Andy. :sad:Quote:
keel over with a little injection
something i remember myself doing during winter, it was cold so i was wearing badly made wool gloves and i had to drill something so i held it down with my left hand and with my other free hand i held an electric drill - as soon as i started the glove got caught on the drill bit and got wrapped around it, so much so that the drill stopped spinning, didn't hurt luckly:) then had to reverse the drill to get my glove off it.
Andy & Rob:
I'm not keen on needles either, I mean I'll have one, just not keen on it. Worst one was one inside mu mouth for having 2 teeth removed.
Lets see, robot injuries, where do I start ? :)
Ants: Hot glue on fingers, cut fingers on metal panels, solder iron burns, drilled fingers, and I stabbed myself with a screwdriver a few days ago fixing Stewie's flipper on
Feathers: Only real close shave I've had was when HA's axe went off with Me and Dave M sat next to it
Heavy: Lots of cuts on the panneling from picking it up and working with the metal