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Used to work in robotics. The QA folk were obviously very much sticklers for the full process of enabling the hardware interlocks before getting near the movin
by monocasa 5y ago
Used to work in robotics. The QA folk were obviously very much sticklers for the full process of enabling the hardware interlocks before getting near the moving bits. One time a manager got mad at them for taking so long going through the full interlock process while repeating a failure mode. He therefore went up to the machine saying "look, it failed so it's stopped, that's how the code works!" At that point our beta version of our CI requisitioned that bot (as the interlock wasn't the only process corner that the manager was trying to cut the bot wasn't marked as reserved in the CI system), it started initializing and broke his arm.
I'm just glad that ultimately he was the only one who faced physical consequences for his poor choices. And thankful that the consequences weren't that bad at the end of the day; a broken arm is way better than a cracked open skull.
- neilv 5y agoI hope that the arm healed well, and that, after the painful demonstration, everyone in the organization was fully onboard with workplace safety protocol.
- CoastalCoder 5y agoOddly enough, I'm right now watching Shake Hands with Danger[0]. [0] https://www.rifftrax.com/shake-hands-with-danger https://www.rifftrax.com/shake-hands-with-danger
- CoastalCoder 5y agoOut of curiosity, what was that manager's attitude towards safety afterwards? I would assume he'd be the poster-child for following safety protocols after that. But I'm still learning a lot about human nature.
- monocasa 5y agoA lot of the toxic pressure that pushed the manager in that direction still existed, but a light hearted floppy arm joke served well to remind everyone relevant of the state space of outcomes.
- ta988 5y agoI worked for a car company. We had robots for mounting parts. Big robotic arm several tons of pressure possible. I was part of the maintenance team, we get an alert for a robot malfunctionning. Coming in the area we see screwdrivers cleverly placed in all the safeties. And a guy trying to tweak the robot that was slowly moving...
- faeyanpiraat 5y agoCould you please elaborate? I don’t fully understand what’s going on with the tweaking? Is he next to the malfunctioning robot?
- hutzlibu 5y agoI think the malfunctioning was the guy shutting down safety meassures intentionally with screwdrivers? In other words, some person did something very stupid, while thinking he is clever.
- ta988 5y agoNot just that, going next to it with securities off.
- ta988 5y agoHe was next to the robot (like his hip touching it) trying to do we never knew what with his hands on the robot. And the robot was moving of course all securities were disabled and it was in a kind of. debug/manual mode) He was also just an operator from the next stage of production, so he was not supposed to be here at all. We checked everything and ran the calibration and validation procedures and they went through so maybe he did repair it in the end.
- Doxin 5y agoI don't work in robotics so I might be entirely off-base here, but surely the interlock process would consist of hitting an E-stop somewhere? What was this process that took long enough for said manager to get annoyed with?
- Aeolun 5y agoI assume you still need it to move, not be entirely turned off?
- jdiez17 5y agoYou usually only hit the E-stop when the robot is moving in a way that could be dangerous. Safety interlocks are intended to minimize the probability of such a dangerous situation. The robot won't move unless all of the interlocks are outputting a "go ahead" signal. The most common interlock is a (switch/laser/hall effect sensor/whatever) that detects the door to the robot cell is closed.
- Doxin 5y agoWell yes I know that much, but surely having an e-stop pressed will stop the robot from moving, same as any of the other interlocks? And opening/closing a door or the like doesn't seem like something that takes a long time either...
- monocasa 5y agoThat cut power and the robot needed to fully recalibrate afterwards which took time while iterating trying to replicate a defect.