[BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Interesting. I wonder just how far away you need to be in order to get a shipping exemption. And short of shipping directly to the event, will teams be able to ship their robots (in bag) to a nearby location (their hotel, for example), and pick it up there? That would seem to reduce a lot of hassle.

RIP "shipdate"

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Let me get this straight, without an exception, everyone bag and tags?

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Yes!

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

I would assume the exception still exists for teams that can't bag and tag to a regional, but that is more of a venue issue I would think.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

I hope this means all teams get unbagging windows like FiM.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

...so...so no more massive crates in the pits? But those are some of the coolest photos you can take the night before thursday practice!

I wonder what we will do with our crate, since we don't go to Champs anymore.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

So does this mean that teams will be paying for shipping from regional to championships, or is this going to be donated? Also the question comes up when it has to be shipped by? I am assuming that the robot will have to be brought back to the team's home base to be shipped to the championship. I hope these questions will be answered in the 2012 FRC Administrative Manual!

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

I was told of a situation today that "could" happen.

Example:
Team 359 decides to sign up for Houston week 6-2012 season.
Team 359 applies for an exemption to have the robot shipped and drayage setup at regional.
Team 359 is the only team attending that needs an exemption.
FIRST denies your exemption and encourages you to attend another event that has more exempt teams pending.

Team 359 already booked airlines, hotels, etc. because its much cheaper to plan ahead.
Team 359's other regionals may be in jeopardy because of suggested change.
:ahh:

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

The reason FiM teams got the unbag time is because for out Districts(excuse me Regional Qualifiers) we have no Thursday practice day. Whether the unbag time compared to the practice day are equal I'm not sure, but it would be a disadvantage to FiM teams if teams out of FiM got the same amount of unbag time and a full practice day for all events. At least that's how I feel. I'm very interested to see how MAR compares to FiM with all their rules.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

If it was donated before (I don't remember if it was or not), I'd assume it'd still be that way. We went to Denver last year, which was a Week 6 Bag & Tag event. I think we had to have the robot shipped out in a crate (while still bagged) by 5pm on the folllowing Tuesday. I imagine it would be something similar this year.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Doubt it.

Unbagging windows are supposed to allow you to get your robot ready for Inspection at a Two day event. (Replaces Thursday)

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Even with an exception, all robots will still get bagged. We'll just be crating a bagged robot.

The exception only provides us drayage support to/from an event.
Crate receiving & storage, local transportation to/from the venue, a place in the venue to keep the crate, local warehousing until a shipper picks up the crate.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Not ideal, but I guess you could just ship it privately?

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

I think the question then becomes, "To where?"

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Uhhhh.... to a drayage facility? If you're paying to ship it privately, why not pay for a drayage facility?

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Or even to a local team's facility? I'd imagine that someone would be nice enough to take in a robot for a few days.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Either that or a sponsor's local facility.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

I'm sure anyone's robot is safe in FIRSTer's hands.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Great suggestions that we thought of.
However, the bigger issue is having to spend time, effort and resources to get it to event and from event to the next regional/championships......instead of the pack the robot and put signs on it, leaving it in the pit.
According to Bill, teams still ship robots to championships in a crate, right?
So what if you are going to CMP after just 1 regional?
Technically, all regionals would have to make provisions for that....I'd assume.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

What???
Middlesex County isn't on there (Team 224 is in NJ), so are we not in MAR?

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

That's exactly what I'm getting at. Any one of those needs to be arranged well in advance; and then what do you do with the crate while you're at the event? (I'm not exactly certain a drayage facility would allow a few people in to open a crate, remove stuff, close the crate, return a few days later, and reverse the process, either.)

What I would suggest is that one or two teams in the area of any given event make themselves available as "ship targets"; that is, places that teams needing to ship for whatever weird reason can send their crates to. Ideally, the teams receiving the crates would also have a transport vehicle for 2-3 robots (and if it's rented, then it's only fair that the teams who ship there at least help with fuel) and take all the robots to the venue. It's probably the "least pain" method, and it increases the work for multiple teams, but it ought to work fairly well.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

The county listing was PA counties. NJ is a state, and is listed along with DE.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

:yikes:
0, wow
Thanks!

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

It would be a wise idea for the "ship targets" to be
a) close to the competition venue (like 190 for the WPI Regional, or a team in downtown DC for the DC regional...)
b) well publicized by FIRST. It would make the teams in the UK, Brazil, etc very happy. And FIRST would get brownie points from all of us in the US.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

You've got to be kidding me.
With the window of time you are working in right now?

Goodness me.

Jane

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

This might be a silly way of looking at it, but if you have already signed up for the regional, and there aren't any regionals that have spots left and a shipping presence, I think they would work with you from there, wouldn't they? Also, leaving the reigning CCA out in the cold like that would cause a big stink.

In addition to that, I think you could find a way to ship the robot to a local team, and pick it up on Wednesday night.

I really hope that doesn't happen to you and everything works out.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

You may not be assured exemption from now, but I think the above is a pretty good standard to consider. For example, Team 359 will have to cross an ocean for any regionals (except Hawai'i) that they attend; therefore, they will almost certainly receive an exemption from BaT for all of those regionals, if requested.

Any team that would consider Bag-and-Tag such a hassle that they'd choose to bag, crate, ship to a trusted acceptor, arrive at the competition's location early, pick up the robot from that acceptor on Wednesday, and finally find a way to get the robot from the first place to the other, will probably be granted an exemption, because they would need an exceptional reason to choose the gruelling, described option.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Regarding the denial of a bag and tag exemption, provided that the decision is rendered around late December/early January, it's more of an inconvenience/expense than a crisis. I'm sure FIRST will help you get in touch with private shipping contractors and someone to hold it for you.

On another note, I wonder if FIRST has a formal plan for enforcement of the bag and tag procedures? Something like requiring submission of photographs of the robots (in the open, and then bagged and sealed) and tags on ship day, with copies to the regionals. Maybe even a procedure for appointed representatives to drop in on short notice to verify compliance. The honour system does work pretty well, but there were some reports of suspicious actions that undermine the integrity of the competition.

You still need a crate for the Championship. Want to bet there will be a mad scramble for teams that didn't think they would qualify at their final-week regionals to put together a crate on Sunday so that they can ship to St. Louis? (Not a huge problem as long as someone, maybe the regional director, has put some advance planning into it.)

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

I don't care what you have to do. Houston would welcome you with great big Texas sized open arms!

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Logistically, anything but honor system is a nightmare. For those who don't know, the 'tags' for bag and tag are basically numbered zip ties. Assuming the technology isn't there to have electronic tracking of the zip ties(:D ) here's an idea I just came up with:

Give teams 6 'tags', each with the same number(IIRC it was a random number of 5 or 6 characters, I don't know if it was the same for all teams)
By midnight bag+tag night, require teams to submit a picture of the robot in the bag, as well as a picture up close of the seal on the bag, along with the extra 6 zip ties.
For MAR and FiM, require the same for each time teams use the work periods, maybe even have work periods be 'activated' through TIMS

It could work, though I imagine the idea of 1000+ teams trying to upload their pictures through TIMS one the same day could possibly be a nightmare if teams all wait until late-night, but it's an idea.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

We can figure this out/make it work.. right, Paul?

Jane

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Reading what I wrote, I realize that I wasn't clear that I didn't intend both of those possibilities to be implemented—one is sufficient. Also, I don't mean for every robot to be independently verified. The mere threat—plus a small sample per regional, chosen by impartial people with an eye to practical considerations—should have a strong deterrent effect.

Your idea about photographing the robots and tags is basically exactly what I was suggesting. If the officials know roughly what a robot looks like on ship day, and can see which tag to expect (and inspect for tampering) at the event, it's much harder to fake it.

Aside: If you really want to track the tags electronically, you could equip them with tamper-evident RFID stickers like they use in consumer goods. I'm not sure what good that would do, though.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Perhaps I should've been more specific.
The issue is not that FIRST wouldnt make exceptions for teams in our situation, but rather the timing.

Last year, our team attended a bag-tag event at NYC. We werent officially notified until late December that arrangements would be made.
Given the deadline from Bill on December 2, 2011, they would then see what teams have requested for an exemption. Planning a trip for 30+ people ideally isnt done a month or 2 in advance. Once we sign up for a regional, we spend the next several days already making reservations/payments for travel expenses.
I booked our trip early last year, since it was quite obvious with the no. of teams that came from other countries and distances similar to ours, that a drayage site/arrangement would be made. There were other issues that came up with our participation in NY that we'd much rather avoid again. After saying this was going to be our last bag/tag event we ever did last year, I guess not......:confused:

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Glenn,
We'll be happy to accept/hold your robot here at our school and get it to the Queen City Regional and then help you ship it to the CMP in St Louis afterward....It would be awesome to have your amazing team competing in our new regional!

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Considering that this is a high school robotics competition, and one that preaches professional values as its core tenant, I would hope that the honor system is enough. I question the sanity, even moreso than the morality, of anyone who cheats to win a plastic trophy from a competition for 15-18 year olds.

Moreover, if someone wants to cheat, there are plenty of other ways they could do it. Bringing in more than the witholding allowance, lying about cost, a myriad of robot-related modifcations, etc. I guess my point is, "cheaters gonna cheat" - don't put any more burden on the vast majority of honest teams (or on already-overburdened volunteers) to worry about it.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Glenn,

If you sign up for the Queen City Regional and you are not able to get an exemption. I will personally except the crate at my home and bring it with me in our team trailer for load in.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

You beat me to punch Dave!

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Jared is on the money here. If you don't abide by the honor system, there's not much reason for you to compete in something where the real engineering challenge is to do incredible things on such a tight deadline. You will end up cheating yourself of the experience.

We haven't had any reported incidents so far, so I don't expect any.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

For the past two years we have had to ship our robot to the CMP from the home of team 1241, Rick Hansen SS in Mississauga Ontario, because FedEx does not offer shipping to our city. Last year a team from Mexico who attended GTR also had their crate shipped to Rick Hansen both in and out, and I would guess this is how the process would work for other teams who can't bring a robot with them. We had qualified the week before and brought the crate with us to GTR in a pickup, but in 2010 there was a team that didn't have one, and had to borrow one from a local team. We have to ship to a warehouse in Toronto on the way back, so a local company can pick it up and truck it home where FedEx doesn't cover.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Without naming any names or places, this isn't true. At least one regional had a rookie team that didn't know they were supposed to stop building. Another team at another event unbagged longer than allowed. In one particular case, a team blatantly modified their robot after ship date.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Lame...well hopefully this year everyone will help each other make sure they all know the rules?

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

I can vouch for the size of said team trailer. Tis quite large. :)

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

I have also encountered a few probable instances of deliberate violations of the hands-off rules. Large-scale violations are probably not widespread, but they give a huge advantage to the teams that are tempted to cheat.

I don't think there's much overhead involved in submitting a few photos to FIRST on ship day. Anyone with an cellphone and an e-mail account could do this.

And if FIRST wanted to physically verify a couple teams, that would have a strong deterrent effect: either the teams would have to plan their cheating around a possible visit, or when the school administration learns of the visit, they'll have to explain why they're hurriedly stuffing the robot into a bag. This has a fair bit of overhead for FIRST volunteers, but on the scale of a couple non-randomly-selected teams per regional, it's quite doable.

It's not my intention to be burdensome, but the honour system isn't really enough to prevent teams from bending rules. They come up with all sorts of justifications for their transgressions, but inevitably it comes down to the idea that they're ignoring an implicit resource constraint that is supposed to apply equally to all teams, as a core tenet of the competition. I think FIRST is right to draw a bright line on ship day, because, as you said, it's just a competition, and the ideal alternative from the perspective of a team—equitably assessing who deserves more time—is incredibly difficult.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Some teams work in secured facilities where getting the designated FIRST representative access could be a time consuming process, giving the team plenty of notice of the visit. If you believe additional verification is necessary, pictures would be a much easier solution.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

[quote=Joe G.;1079067]will teams be able to ship their robots (in bag) to a nearby location (their hotel, for example), and pick it up there? [quote]Thet entireley depends on the Hotel, etc. Some will accept large crates, most will not. But finding a place to ship "to" is not that challenging.
Fill it with Donuts and Mountain Dew.
Sure, why not? Millions of tons of cargo go zipping across the country all the time, why not another crate?
Pictures can be faked, like anything else.

Bag & Tag is, at its best, a great solution and a real convenience. At its worst it is a mere inconvenience and expense. This is an easy problem to solve, folks, don't worry much.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

I knew this was coming, but it's going to make for some interesting logistics.

Let's see -
Florida - Ship BAG N' TAG in CRATE
Mount Olive - CRATE arrives with BAG N' TAG
(Thus because it arrived there in a CRATE it still has to go out in a CRATE)
Lenape - Still have the BAG N' TAG and CRATE
Saint Louis - Do we still need to BAG N' TAG at this point?

LOL this is hilarious to me and confusing all at the same time! Good luck to everyone with this BAG N' TAG process. :D

Cass

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

This is a great idea, the only thing you have to worry about is getting that robot to the competition from the location you ship it to. I like the idea though!

Cass

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Here's how I think it would work, in your case, presuming that you are allowed to ship to Florida.

Ship Bag & Tag in Crate to Florida
Ship Bag & Tag in Crate to home. Remove robot, still bagged.
Take Bag & Tag to Mount Olive
Take Bag & Tag to Lenape
Take Bag & Tag to home.
Ship Bag & Tag in Crate to Saint Louis.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Thanks for the invite!
Some of us actually visited your city during the summer after IRI.
Maybe the following year.

Glenn

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

I think the exemptions are only for teams like overseas, ie. Israel

I'm pretty sure every other team will have to provide their own methods for going like cross country

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Maybe not even isreal... they have a local regional already.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Teams from Hawaii also count as overseas.

Why do you think that? Bill's Blog seems to say otherwise.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Great. We're spoiled to live here...We have all four seasons, activities to do all year round and best of all - EVERYWHERE we vacation is more exciting than here.
I'll have to stop by and visit you all this summer when I'm on my vacation around the islands. See you in St Louis.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Yes, I imagine HI teams going to any events in the lower 48 or Canada will be allowed to CRATE it.

I also imagine for example that teams from WA/OR/(Other PNW states) going to FL/GA for a regional will also be allowed to crate it.

The non-US/Canada teams coming to a US/Canadian event (I'm looking at you, Great Britain and Brazil) are probably also going to be allowed to crate.

It makes sense. The old way was very costly and extremely unsustainable, given the massive growth of the competition. Also, not requiring a drayage facility opens up more possibilities for venue choices.

In 1992 there were ~30 teams IIRC, 11 years later, When 1075 started in 2003, there were maybe 600 active teams. 8 years later, there are now well over 2000 active teams. The competition is growing at an accelerating rate.

A management consultant at my workplace gave me an interesting analogy some time ago:

Hypothetical person owns a company cutting grass.

He starts working on his own, with a pair of scissors. At first, he only has 1 or 2 customers, so its not a problem that it takes him a long time to cut a lawn. All of a sudden though, 2 more people want their lawn cut. There arent enough hours in the day. So he gets a manual push mower. Now he can do 10 lawns a day instead of 2. Theres another capacity plateau, before he has to get a motorized push mower. And another when he gets a riding lawn mower, and again when he has to hire people to help him keep up with demand.

Most businesses have these capacity plateaus, where there's a major investment required (in time, money, resources, whatever) to increase capacity. Most things don't have the ability to smoothly adjust capacity to demand. Maybe your workshop needs to get physically bigger so you can hire more people, but now during the times you're not busy, you have a much larger overhead cost. In our lawn-cutting example, what happens during the winter months, when there's no need to cut grass, but he still has to pay the loan back to the bank on the riding mower.

I think FIRST's current format is rapidly running out of capacity. As Bill and others have mentioned, we need to change the format of CMP in the next few years, or the growth at the regional level will fill ALL CMP slots with teams qualified at regionals. We need to cut costs at the regional (district/qualifier) level, in order to continue growing the program, so that more events can be set up cheaper AND we lower the barrier of FRC's high cost-of-entry. More events means more people needed to run them, means more fields, means more slots for teams to fill. IIRC there were 14 Logomotion fields travelling the regional circuit last year. Remember, the current format of CMP uses 8 alone (the four divisional fields, einstein, the two practice fields, and an 8th field in the truck ready to go in case one of the others has issues).

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

On the bright side, teams like my old team (in which the shipping rep came early enough that we could never work on Tuesday) get a few extra hours with the robot. :)

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Interesting enough, there are still logistical issues that have to be coordinated for HI teams.
Teams from neighbor islands still have to crate, even though they decide to ONLY do the HI regional which takes place on Oahu, HI.

If HI is our first regional of the season, we would need to bag-tag it, bring it to the HI tournament, take it home after the tournament, crate it, then ship from our school to the next regional.
If we decide to do a regional in the mainland first, I'd assume that the shipping point to and from HI would be our school, which isnt the case for neighbor island teams.

For mainland teams choosing to do the HI regional, FIRST will provide two FedEX airbills to help cover the travel cost of your robot/crate.
We are trying to have a tools supply area for teams to borrow, coming from either the neighbor islands or outside HI, so that they dont have to bring all their tools with them in the crate (making it more expensive to ship).

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Consider a HI robot cart rental service too and teams would just have to bring themselves. :)

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Just curious: Is there a car ferry service that could fit, say, a typical passenger van, that runs between islands? Is it as expensive as I would fear? If so, perhaps loading a van with everything but the humans and sending it that way...

I suppose robots won't fit in the overhead bins?:p (OK, maybe minibots...)

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

No, there is no ferry between the Islands, only cruise ships. Hey, that might be interesting?? Coming from the Big Island, it definitely puts a roadblock in our attempts to do a Mainland regional. Where to ship the crate to (assuming we get an exemption?) now we'd have to rent a truck to get the robot, bumpers, controls, tools and spare parts there, and then load it all back in at this "friendly" location that held our crate for us for a few weeks and have it shipped home from there. Who would unload a 400+ lb crate for us from the shippers? Move it and store it at your place? Let us open it up the day before competition? Come back late after the competition so we can re-pack it? Move it out so our shipping company can pick it back up? Do you all see where we are coming from here? It was already very hard for us to compete on the Mainland as witnessed by the fact that only one team outside Hawaii came here last year. It's not possible for us to participate in a "drive-up" regional like the test sites in Michigan. Without some major help this could be the end for us! I'm worried about our Hawaii regional too. We have to ship from my Island to Oahu, unless someone has a spare submarine we can use. Our fantastic Robotics Organizing Committee has told us they will help us this year. Hopefully they can find a place to store our crates and still allow easy access to them when we fly over? We'll still need to rent a truck unless they can somehow get our stuff to the arena???

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

I'd assume it'd be wherever the crates were shipped before (some drayage site nearby), and they'd probably even get it to and from the venue if needed. Venue space for crates is probably still there at a lot of regionals that didn't switch venues and previously had crates.

Most of these would probably be taken care by the drayage company FIRST would have you send the robot to. Alternatively, I know some schools and businesses have forklifts that can unload crates, and storage space. You wouldn't open it before competition if it was shipped to the venue, and you'd probably crate it before you left so the shipping company could pick it up there. You'd only run into problems if you didn't have your paperwork in order.

Again, unless the Hawaii regional switched venues or has teams taking up space that previously was storage for crates, I don't see why it would be changed from previous years.

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

I like your optimism but i was told there are no drayage contracts this year and we would have to find our own means of getting our robot to the event. I suppose we could pay for drayage although I can't imagine what that will cost after adding shipping over the pacific and airfare for the team (there are no buses from Hawaii to the Mainland) to the costs. Glenn, how are you guys doing it? I see three other Hawaii teams registered for Portland, have they made arrangements for shipping?

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Dale,
as of right now, we are not even sure how everything is going to be handled.
We are going to wait until Oct. 27 to see if we get into our second regional....either Portland or Salt Lake City during week 2 or 3 respectively.

The most important challenge for us is getting the robot back from Salt Lake City, if possible, in two day time back to HI for our regional.
Will it cost us a lot? Absolutely....

But as you have mentioned, the drayage issue is something we do not understand fully quite yet since every event is now a bag-tag.

Our team has decided that if we do one of the above regionals.....it will only be a skeleton crew since we wont make any travel arrangements until its all sorted, for which I'm guessing late December.
By that time, the rates should be sky high.:ahh:

Houston during week 6 is guaranteed for us, as we have made payment as of this morning already. I'm not worried about logistics as FIRST has said two airbills will be provided. We plan on bringing the army there! :)

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

Just an anecdote for you..

In 2008 we had a pretty massive shipping mishap. Our first regional was Arizona in week 2, with our second competition being Boston in week 5 or 6 I believe. When we walked into the Arizona regional on Thursday and got to our pit, we were greeted by the event staff. For some reason, our team didn't have a crate at the event. After much digging, it was discovered our crate was sitting in drayage back in Massachusetts.

We got in touch with drayage and FedEx and arranged for our crate to be overnighted to us in Arizona. Thanks to the efforts of several people we never got a chance to meet, our robot arrived the next day. We missed a ton of matches on Friday trying to get the robot ready to go, but eventually made the elims and lost in the semis.

Hawaii adds another degree of shipping difficulty for sure, but I thought you may find this story somewhat interesting.

-Brando

Re: [BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified
 

You bring up a good point. However, I'm not sure it's as difficult as it sounds, considering most teams near your mainland regional did something similar last year. People on this thread have already volunteered for some locales.

I don't know what regional you're looking to attend, but most locations should have at least some local teams with the ability to receive large crates. (After all, they did it last year.) I'm sure at least one would be more than happy to receive your shipment and help you get it to the venue with their own robot. Further, asking a few members of that local team to stay and help pack and move it back to their site doesn't seem too cumbersome. Some teams would even have room on their own truck, saving you that cost at least.

If you don't know anyone around your mainland event, maybe try contacting the regional director for help.