Pit and Shop Conduct Mistakes That Hurt Your Judging

Most safety points aren't lost to anything dramatic - they're recurring conduct mistakes a Safety Manager spots in thirty seconds. Because safe practices are now a requirement for eligibility for every judged award, these matter for far more than 'a safety award.' Here is the catalog and the fix for each.

Mistake 1 - Daisy-chained / overloaded power strips. Plugging strips into strips is a top finding and a real fire risk. Fix: one strip per outlet, rated for the load; use a single proper power feed and label it. Add it to your opening checklist.

Mistake 2 - People without safety glasses. Eye protection is required in the pit at all times - including visitors and parents. A single bare-eyed person in your pit is an instant ding. Fix: keep a bin of ANSI Z87.1 loaner glasses at the pit entrance and assign someone to enforce it.

Mistake 3 - Food or open drinks in the work area. Contamination and slip hazards. Fix: designate an eating area outside the pit; post a 'no food/drink' card.

Mistake 4 - Loose hair, hoodie strings, lanyards near machinery. These get caught in drills, lathes, and robot mechanisms. Fix: tie back hair, remove lanyards, and tuck strings before using any rotating tool.

Mistake 5 - Pushing the robot through a crowd / carrying it solo. Improper robot transport is a listed concern. Fix: always move the robot with a spotter clearing the path, and use two people (or the cart) for a heavy robot.

Mistake 6 - Lifting with the back. Fix: lift with the knees, keep the load close; demonstrate proper technique in training and on/off the cart.

Mistake 7 - Claiming a 'perfect safety record.' Advisors are skeptical of teams that report zero incidents, because it usually means nothing is being tracked. Fix: keep a safety event log documenting near-misses and the corrective actions you took. Showing how you respond beats claiming nothing ever happens.

Mistake 8 - Only leadership knows the safety story. Advisors talk to random members. Fix: drill the whole team: where the extinguisher is (and PASS = Pull, Aim, Squeeze, Sweep), the battery retirement rule, and how to make the robot safe to work on.

Debugging approach: treat the opening-day checklist as a recurring test you must pass. Walk the pit each morning, score yourself on these eight items, and fix anything red before doors open. The mistakes are predictable, which means they're entirely preventable.