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G2SS a suicide pill?


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53 minutes ago, MattR said:

Until the BSA develops training for scouters on teaching and supervising scouts using power tools i doubt anything will change.

I got my father in law's radial arm saw and as soon as I found out I could get $150 if I proved I destroyed it, I took them up on the offer. Does fine as a miter saw. Most dangerous thing I've seen for ripping boards. These are a clear no for me. Table saws and lathes in the hands of adults with little training or experience is just asking for trouble. I can see the BSA saying no or really limited use on those tools. Most other power tools I think could be made safe with a well written training program.

The BSA has figured out how to safely put scouts in the water, on rocks and shooting. They can make most tools safe as well.

 

Oh yes, there's definitely some tools I wouldn't even let most adults use unsupervised (or at all) if they were at my house.  I grew up using that stuff with my father and grandfather and even then I didn't respect table saws quite the way I should have.  But now the slightly numb middle finger where the nice Nurse Practitioner sewed my fingertip back together serves as a nice constant reminder about safety.

Yeah, radial arm saws, shapers, lathes, angle grinders I don't think I'd ever allow anyone else to use on my insurance policy.  Way too much risk of mutilating injury through a single moment of inattention as opposed to those tools that are generally safe if you follow a few simple guidelines.

But for that to happen, they have to actually decide it's worth paying attention to and develop rules rather than taking the easy excuse of "OSHA says no" even though anyone who thinks about it realizes theres a difference between being employed to use a 300lb industrial steel cart for hours on end and using a 30lb cart for a 2 hour service project.

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@RichardB I  know better than to not follow the rules. So I do my best to keep up with BSA policies to the point that I have often had to tell my council's professional staff what is and is not a

Focus on adventure is the KEY That is what many do not really understand.  If Scouts are having fun and adventure and if THAT is your focus, everything else works out.  Our troop has a lot of Eag

Boy, I'm not sure why you want to set people's teeth on edge before you offer input, but you sure do a good job at it.  It's not the way I'd try and persuade folks, but I'll assume you have a reason.

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I look back at all the things I learned in scouts and one of the most important, because it might have saved someone's life when I said "how do you know there's no bullet in the chamber?", was gun safety. Tool safety would be close.

I just don't understand why the same idea behind teaching gun safety isn't used to teach other types of safety that could enhance the program.

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6 minutes ago, MattR said:

I look back at all the things I learned in scouts and one of the most important, because it might have saved someone's life when I said "how do you know there's no bullet in the chamber?", was gun safety. Tool safety would be close.

I just don't understand why the same idea behind teaching gun safety isn't used to teach other types of safety that could enhance the program.

Good thought. With tools (especially knives):

"What happens when your hand slips, where does the tool go?"

"What happens when the piece or tool moves?"

"Where do cuttings go?"

This all goes to preparing your worksite to prevent an accident.

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How did we ever get to be adults?

Jungle gyms in elementary school , 8 feet high, made of steel galvanized plumbing pipe, held together with bare u-bolts , sharp corners on those bolts.

Kickball, softball,  MAYBE a catcher's mask. MAYBE a glove.  We had a Cub Scout softball league.... I played left field and first base.  

Asphalt playgrounds, potholes and all.  Slide into THAT, dodgeball on a set circle ring, red bouncy ball ("no, Richard, NOT the soccer ball....").

Asphalt under the swing set .  JUMP out of the swing, which had ahard, wood seat.  Extra momentum when you tried to swing it all the way around the bar....   Not very easily possible with the present hard rubber seats. 

Do you see any 2 story elementary schools anymore? 

 

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4 hours ago, SSScout said:

How did we ever get to be adults?

Jungle gyms in elementary school , 8 feet high, made of steel galvanized plumbing pipe, held together with bare u-bolts , sharp corners on those bolts.

Kickball, softball,  MAYBE a catcher's mask. MAYBE a glove.  We had a Cub Scout softball league.... I played left field and first base.  

Asphalt playgrounds, potholes and all.  Slide into THAT, dodgeball on a set circle ring, red bouncy ball ("no, Richard, NOT the soccer ball....").

Asphalt under the swing set .  JUMP out of the swing, which had ahard, wood seat.  Extra momentum when you tried to swing it all the way around the bar....   Not very easily possible with the present hard rubber seats. 

Do you see any 2 story elementary schools anymore? 

 

I guess the answer is that a lot more of us didn't get to be adults. Enhanced safety considerations have caused an exponential decline in childhood death rates. I know we get nostalgic about how things were when we were young, but so much of it, like playground wood chips and bike helmets, is just belated common sense. 

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10 hours ago, SSScout said:

Extra momentum when you tried to swing it all the way around the bar....   Not very easily possible with the present hard rubber seats. 

Unless you have a solid bar for the "ropes" of the swing it's impossible to do a loop on a swingset. But, I suppose not many students took physics back in your day, either. :)

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11 hours ago, MattR said:

Unless you have a solid bar for the "ropes" of the swing it's impossible to do a loop on a swingset. But, I suppose not many students took physics back in your day, either. :)

Well, yeah,   KE still equals 1/2MV squared.

Pushing the swing (empty), it was possible to  wrap the chain supports around the bar.  With a kid in the seat, pumping, never saw that, but that doesn't mean we didn't try !

https://aplusphysics.com/community/index.php?/blogs/entry/929-can-you-really-swing-over-the-bar/

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11 hours ago, MattR said:

Unless you have a solid bar for the "ropes" of the swing it's impossible to do a loop on a swingset. But, I suppose not many students took physics back in your day, either.

 

5 minutes ago, SSScout said:

Well, yeah,   KE still equals 1/2MV squared.

Pushing the swing (empty), it was possible to  wrap the chain supports around the bar.  With a kid in the seat, pumping, never saw that, but that doesn't mean we didn't try !

https://aplusphysics.com/community/index.php?/blogs/entry/929-can-you-really-swing-over-the-bar/

Not if you are shot out of a cannon!!  Enough initial velocity, and you could wrap around that bar no problem...of course, the force required to get to that velocity would probably injure the rider...

Now, to help that kid in the video, he had the counterweight on top...no such thing on the chain swing...

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On 12/3/2021 at 10:42 AM, SSScout said:

How did we ever get to be adults?

 

 

The thing to remember is that a lot of us didn't.  The fatality rate for children is about half today what it was in the mid 60s.  There are a lot of reasons for that but being smarter about safety is certainly a part of it.

Sure, we never wore seatbelts as kids, and we didn't die, but that's not because it wasn't foolish or dangerous.  Those commercials showing what happened to unbelted crash test dummies weren't exaggerations.

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3 hours ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

 

Not if you are shot out of a cannon!!  Enough initial velocity, and you could wrap around that bar no problem...of course, the force required to get to that velocity would probably injure the rider...

Now, to help that kid in the video, he had the counterweight on top...no such thing on the chain swing...

It seems to me that at some point, if we got the movement going, we began to jerk in the swing.  That was where we either slowed down, or bailed if we could control (well, maybe not).  The physics experts can explain or whatever.  Just know I never saw anyone go over the bar, but did see some thrown loose by the jerking.

 

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On 12/3/2021 at 4:05 PM, yknot said:

I guess the answer is that a lot more of us didn't get to be adults. Enhanced safety considerations have caused an exponential decline in childhood death rates. I know we get nostalgic about how things were when we were young, but so much of it, like playground wood chips and bike helmets, is just belated common sense. 

That's not even close to true. Per the Maternal & Child Health Bureau, Accidental Injuries represented 49% of child (5-14) deaths in 1970 and was 36% of deaths in 2007.  And since that death category includes automobile accidents, that's going to include the reduction in deaths caused by the seat belt laws passed in the 80s.  Child Mortality Study 1970-2007 

 

 

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On 12/4/2021 at 9:05 AM, SSScout said:

Well, yeah,   KE still equals 1/2MV squared.

Pushing the swing (empty), it was possible to  wrap the chain supports around the bar.  With a kid in the seat, pumping, never saw that, but that doesn't mean we didn't try !

https://aplusphysics.com/community/index.php?/blogs/entry/929-can-you-really-swing-over-the-bar/

Anyone else think that the completion of that swing was probably closely followed by a group of boys deciding to compete to see how many revolutions they can do before they vomit?  And then when they realized not everyone does vomit it was followed up with "Ok, now eat/drink a bunch of X and see if you can still do it without throwing up!"

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2 hours ago, elitts said:

Anyone else think that the completion of that swing was probably closely followed by a group of boys deciding to compete to see how many revolutions they can do before they vomit?  And then when they realized not everyone does vomit it was followed up with "Ok, now eat/drink a bunch of X and see if you can still do it without throwing up!"

Very possible, people, and boys being of that nature.  Today though, the lawyer is in the wings to sue anyone that touched the swing during its manufacture or installation.  And it is fifty, fifty it will actually fly and even get a settlement.

 

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4 hours ago, elitts said:

That's not even close to true. Per the Maternal & Child Health Bureau, Accidental Injuries represented 49% of child (5-14) deaths in 1970 and was 36% of deaths in 2007.  And since that death category includes automobile accidents, that's going to include the reduction in deaths caused by the seat belt laws passed in the 80s.  Child Mortality Study 1970-2007 

 

 

I'm not exactly sure what you are stating because I'm not sure what your "not true" relates to. I think we're agreeing that the decline in child death rates due to accidents has declined dramatically since 1970? Far fewer kids overall are dying today than in 1970 despite the youth population being essential static during that time frame. 

 

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