Robot came home
 

Robot crate showed up from worlds today. Set a new speed record for coming home from worlds.

Re: Robot came home
 

Lucky you! I still get

"Not found
This tracking number cannot be found, please check the number or contact the sender. "

I wonder when we should start to worry? In 8 weeks? We have a State Championship at the end of May...

Re: Robot came home
 

Last year the PRO number did not show up in tracking until a couple days before it was delivered. I didn't check this time because I really wasn't expecting it this soon. It will not show up until FedEx has received the crate from Shepard. So no pro number means the crate is in St Louis. Actual ship time to AZ shouldn't be that bad.

Re: Robot came home
 

Glad we used our trailer! We did a demo at City Hall yesterday evening.

Added: The trailer was pulled by a mentor's truck. His gasoline was paid by NASA, in the form of travel expenses for another of our mentors who was in the truck. They beat the bus back to the school parking lot by a few minutes.

Re: Robot came home
 

We asked for and got a permission letter from FIRST, then when it was time to leave CMP we just shoved our 'bot under the bus. (In the luggage compartment, that is. We put the dismantled crate in there too.)

No fuss, no trailer, no delay -- our robot arrived home with the team at 3 am Sunday. If it were shorter we'd have let it ride upstairs with us.

Re: Robot came home
 

I couldn't figure out how to fit the robot and crate into my carry on bag.

Re: Robot came home
 

I'm jealous, we were told 6-8 weeks :(

Ours went into the back seat of a minivan and rode home with a group of mentors. Have an off season event on the 16th and didn't want to chance it.

Re: Robot came home
 

Ours landed today also. We had expedited shipping to get ready for CT State Champs in a couple weeks.

Re: Robot came home
 

Does anyone besides me think that this is a flaw in an otherwise quite good system? Shouldn't those who are willing to carry their robot home from the Championship just be able do it, without having to apply for special dispensation?

It seems that the 6-week delivery time ought instead to be a fallback for those teams who have no other option.

As a small, underfunded team, we could make good use of the robot in the coming few weeks, "while the funding iron is hot".

Re: Robot came home
 

The times we've sent teams, it's been a reasonably quick return time...but we also had at least 200 fewer crates going through the system.

Crates were the default mode of transport for the longest of times, even at the regional level. I suspect there's a smidgen of that in play, but there could also be venue or union policies that factor into the rule. And besides, if you think load-out is hellish now imagine a couple hundred additional pieces getting crammed under the bus (and a few dozen of them slowing up further upon the realization it won't fit!).

Re: Robot came home
 

Absolutely the same here. That's why we applied for permission early, and brought the crate out to the trailer minutes after unpacking it. Though I can't really say that we're underfunded since winning Bayou, but we still have some work to do to become really sustainable. I did learn tonight that we raised more money this year than any team at the school except football. About half of that was raised between Bayou (week 4) and CMP - and we're "getting while the getting is good"!

Re: Robot came home
 

Tracking number finally shows up on FedEx web page...yay! Estimated delivery 5/7/2015

Thanks FedEx!

Re: Robot came home
 

Good to hear Jim. I've made my reservations for the State Champs already. Would hate to miss the opportunity to compete with some of our old friends.

Re: Robot came home
 

If the robot is needed at home after worlds, just stick it in the bus and throw 120 pounds of your pit in the crate. Cant imagine that would bother anyone too much:)

Re: Robot came home
 

I brought the pit stuff in the trunk of my car. The robot wouldn't quite fit.
The rest of the team came by air.

Re: Robot came home
 

I think that FIRST should work with Amazon. I use Prime on all the stuff that I ship and it shows up in two days :rolleyes:

The behind the scenes logistics are pretty amazing to get the crates out of the building and moved into trucks to head to locations. Remember that FedEx is doing this, but I'll guess that the shipments go on space available, not as primary shipments. I keep wanting to have teams put a GPS tracker in their boxes to see where the box goes and how long it sits in locations.

Re: Robot came home
 

Last year we didn't think to expedite it but figure it would land quick. We had a demo which was a week later then now 2 years in a row and it was back in time for both. We have always gotten a pretty quick return.