Incident Management Procedure

This page is primarily for internal use. If you are a team competing in Student Robotics, you probably want our main website.

This page details the procedures to be following in the event of an incident occurring during the competition. Incidents are split into 2 types; minor and major.

What constitutes an incident is rather unpredictable, and as such is not fully defined. Common sense should prevail in determining the nature and severity of the incident.

This procedure is superseded by any requirements of the venue, e.g. in the event of a fire follow the venues' fire evacuation procedure.

Minor Incidents

A minor incident is anything that needs some kind of response but has minimal impact on the event.

Examples may be;

  • A competitor has twisted their ankle on a stairwell,
  • Infrastructure cabling has become damaged and poses a hazard.

Procedure here is simple;

  • Notify relevant coordinator,
  • Follow their instructions

Major Incidents

A major incident is anything that causes a significant impact on the event as a whole.

Examples might include;

  • Accident requiring significant first aid,
  • Battery failure renders access to an area unsafe

If first aid is required the First Aid Provider should always be notified first. Following that, as with minor incidents, the reaction should be to notify the relevant coordinator and follow their instructions.

Stopping the competition

A major incident may call for the competition to be stopped. This may be at the end of a current match or in the middle of a match.

Due to the impact of stopping the competition, ability to do so is restricted to the following roles:

  • Health and Safety Coordinator,
  • Event Coordinator,
  • Head Shepherd,
  • Event Tech Lead,
  • Majority decision from Trustees.

Stopping the competition will be indicated by a call over the radio of "This is role; stop the competition." This call should be repeated at least once, and every minute or so until acknowledged by one of the other aforementioned roles.

Urgency call

Any volunteer is able to raise an urgency call. This indicates that they feel a situation exists which may qualify as a major incident, and the roles able to stop the event should respond immediately.

This should be indicated by a call over the radio of "Potential incident at location; emergency roles respond." This call should be repeated at least once, and every minute or so until acknowledged by one of the other aforementioned roles or the Head Shepherd.

Should the Head Shepherd receive an Urgency call from a Shepherd, they should repeat this on the main radio network to ensure all the aforementioned roles are aware.

Stopping actions

At the point the competition is stopped the following should occur;

  • Matches stop,
  • Test arena to be powered down and vacated,
  • Power tools area to be vacated,
  • Battery charging to be turned off,
  • Competitors, Team Supervisors, and Visitors should be asked to remain in their current location,
  • Competitors to be asked to stop testing on robots.

The aim of these is to prevent any other issues occurring whilst the current incident is being dealt with, and to prevent attendees from getting in the way of the handling the incident.

Shift in roles

In the event of a major incident, the Head Shepherd becomes the point of contact between the main radio network and the shepherd radio network. They are also responsible for managing the Shepherds and Badgers. To avoid confusion, all radios should remain on their normal network.

The Head Shepherd should ensure that all Coordinators and Shepherds are aware that the competition has been stopped. They should also confirm that volunteers in the rest area are aware to report to assist. Radio or internal phone are preferred means of notifying others, if these fail a volunteer "runner" should be sent.

Shepherds become responsible for managing competitors, team leaders, and members of the public.

The nearest roving helper should shutdown the power tools area, and remain there to ensure it remains unused.

All other roles should remain in location and await further instructions.

Volunteers in the rest area should be prepared to come and assist when instructed.

Further instructions will be given when appropriate, and should not be requested.

Stopping matches

With stopping matches, the Head Judge should make a decision about whether to stop the match part way through, or to stop the matches once the current match is finished. This decision should be based on the proximity of the incident to the arena, and any further information received regarding the incident.

If the match is stopped at the end, the Marshals should score the match as normal, and then hit the power cut off on each robot. The arena should then be vacated and left as-is.

If the match is stopped immediately, if safe to do so, the Marshals should hit the power cut off on each robot, and then vacate the arena.

In either scenario; the Badgers should ask all competitors to leave the staging area. Robots to remain where they are, power cut offs to be hit.

Resuming/cancelling the competition

Resuming the competition requires the consent of all involved in stopping it.

Cancelling the event requires a majority vote from Trustees.