[BB] The wooden beams have started creaking

[Taylor]

Of note: Put your team number on your cart!

Blog text:

The wooden beams have started creaking



Good Afternoon Teams,

The tidal wave of field and game elements is on its way. Here at 200 Bedford Street we’ve been taking delivery of materials needed for the 2012 field for weeks now and expect a truck (or more) a day every day through Thanksgiving. Space is getting a little tight.

This is going to be a heavy field to set up when all is said and done. Our pallet jacks can handle up to 5,000lbs in a single load and the engineering staff tell me we’ve been pushing the jacks to their limit recently. At the moment we have an estimated 8,000lbs of polycarbonate sheets, four 1,000lb pallets of game specific steel elements, a pallet of aluminum, three 1,500lb pallets of a game specific item plus a fourth 1,000lb pallet of a different game specific item, two full pallets of gaffers tape, an entire pallet of carpet tape and multiple pallets of game pieces. None of which takes into account the existing field components we will be bolting, zip tying and otherwise attaching these items onto or the elements that have not been delivered yet.

The Kit of Parts is being put together at our warehouse which means truckloads of components are arriving there daily as well. Staff and volunteers are starting to pre-kit smaller items (putting separate elements into little plastic bags) ready to put those bags into larger containers and planning the physical layout of elements inside those larger containers. Back at 200 Bedford Street, Procurement is scheduling deliveries to local Kickoffs and preparing truck routes for competition events.

It’s never dull around here.

In other news:

The next Senior Mentor call will be FRC Control System/Driver’s Station Beta Test Observations with our very own Kevin O’Connor from the first floor. Join him November 21st at 7PM ET by calling 1-866-951-1151 and using conference room # 9533018

All teams (with the exception of teams in Israel who are only attending the Israel Regional) will be expected to Bag and Tag their robot this year.
•Section 5.5 of the Administrative Manual (now available on our website) allows teams to bag bumpers separately from the robot if it is more convenient for teams to transport their robot that way. Be aware, the bag with the bumper and the bag with the robot must both be sealed with a tag and logged independently.
•If you haven’t already done so, be sure to read the Bag & Tag FAQ and decide how you plan to proceed before the deadline for exemption requests passes on December 2nd.
Speaking of Manual sections, Section 4.2.2 covers robot carts. Please be sure to clearly label your robot cart with your team number. There is no defined way to do this, we just want to make sure field personnel can identify what cart belongs to which team so we can keep things flowing smoothly on the field.

52 days until Kickoff
See you then!