Shipping to Nats

[Veselin Kolev]

Hey everyone

My team wants to take all of our power stuff to nationals in Atlanta this year, as in a band saw, drill press, ect.... But it is fairly big stuff. We could fill a robot crate with all of our junk.. so that is what we want to do: ship a second crate to Atlanta. My question is, how do we do this? The main concern is that shipping costs A LOT. For example, shipping a 500 pound crate from us (San Jose, CA) to Atlanta costs $2000 with FedEx. Does anyone have any ideas on how to make this cheaper? I know lots of teams ship two crates, but I'm currently clueless.

[Kyle]

Have someone rent a truck and drive, that could be cheaper.

[KTorak]

Accoridng to FIRST (In this PDF: http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/2005/site_info/2005Championship.pdf ), the cost is $56 per 100 lbs. for a 2nd Crate to be shipped to Atlanta.

[LSevcik]

There are two costs involved in shipping a crate for the robotics competition. Drayage which is transporting the crate to/from the drayage company to the venue. This is $56 per 100 lbs. Shipping is transporting your crate to/from your high school etc to the drayage company. Midwest Conference provides this service and it is $1.25 per pound and a fuel surcharge may be added. Its expensive to ship a robot crate and second crate can really impact a team's budget. There is a machine shop at the event.

[Mark McLeod]

We solicited a shipping company as a sponsor. They donate free shipping for our tools, cart, etc.

The only difficulty is they must ship to an outside holding facility rather than the Georgia Dome where we pick up the tools in Atlanta. We then bring them in just like any local team. Everything is packed in managable sized totes and wrapped together on a pallet.

[Veselin Kolev]

So I'm guessing that it costs about $1200 to ship a second crate to nats... hmmm can anyone say check in luggage? I guess thats what we'll have to do... thanks guys