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Originally Posted by Carol
MOE is considering buying a trailer to help transport the robot and other necessary equipment to competitions (especially off-season, when less people attend) and to demonstrations and community events. (We can then, of course, paint the trailer with our colors and dazzle people going down the highway). We have been using mentor's pickups and vans for transport, especially to Atlanta, as we generally either fly or drive to the competitions.
Does your team have a trailer? Some questions:
What kind do you have?
How often do you use it?
Where do you store it?
Who pulls it? How many mentors/parents are able and willing to pull the trailer?
What are the annual maintenance costs?
How do you manage who is authorized to pull the trailer?
Do you have training sessions for authorized operators?
Do you find the trailer more or less convenient than a pickup truck or van?
Do you have insurance for it? How much does it cost?
Since we are not affiliated with a school, we have to organize and pay for our own transportation and the insurance that requires.
All advice is appreciated!  |
Carol- team 25 got a trailer last year- a nice 12 ft Haulmark with a drop down rear door and all sorts of niceties.
Big Mike is the only one with a truck big enough to move it so we set him up with the hitch. His dad has trailer experience and trained him. The school registers and insures it through their auto pool.
But so far we have used it only a few times. It hauled the pit materials to the NJ Regional. It picked up and stored the materials for the building of the field components this year.
But with the gas prices skyrocketing the expense of dragging it to distant sites hasn't warranted it. Lately we shove the robot in the back of my Blazer as we did before.
It
does give us secure storage for materials. We park it in the athletic stadium behind closed gates.
If money is tight you might want to rethink a trailer. If not, we look forward to seeing it at Brunswick Eruption 5 on November 4th. (shameless plug
)
WC