W.F. Hederman
Collegiate Robotic Football Conference,
United States
Keywords: robotic battery power, fire suppression, fire prevention
Summary:
In 2024, while preparing for the national championship tournament for the Collegiate Robotic Football Conference, one of the teams had a fire incident in the college club's lab. The fire was contained but some student team members required visits to the hospital. Since this event, enhanced safety measures have been put in place at the school and conference levels. Most importantly, when the conference sought insights from the National Labs on battery safety, they found little practical advice available. This presentation will summarize the incident, report on the lessons learned, and make proposals for the National Labs to support enhanced work on batteries in challenging, even chaotic, environments, such as a 8 robots per team football competitions. The Collegiate Robotic Football Conference currently consists of nine universities.