Lack of Drayage Support for Out of State Teams

[waialua359]

Dear FIRST community,
our team recently got a message from FIRST that they are no longer providing drayage support to teams that ship their robot from out-of-state (have to fly to regionals), unless your robot is shipped using their 2 FedEx vouchers, if exemption is approved.
During the past year when all regionals became bag-tag events, that was not the case (based on our personal experience and exemptions).

We were recommended to either ship the robot to a nearby participating school or to ship the robot to our hotel.

You can imagine what ramifications this will have on our team or any other team in a similar situation.

I cant imagine the costs or hurdles it'll take to overcome these situations, or basically, we are forced to do 1 event roundtrip with our airbills, if we get any.

Why on Earth would donated airbills be tied to drayage setup for teams who have to ship their crate to events?

[JohnChristensen]

I know that inside the continental US, teams that go by bus (my team, for example) are able put their robots on board and leave crates behind. However, for teams outside the continental US, including you guys, this does create a logistical nightmare. Hopefully, FIRST can reconsider this issue, at least for teams that *MUST* fly to events. If nothing else, I am sure the FIRST community can solve these problems by providing receiving locations and robot transportation to events for teams like yours.

[nnfuller]

I'm Sure that if you asked early enough, there would be a team near the regional willing to receive your robot and transport it to the regional. With the number of teams attending each regional, the odds of one of them being able to accommodate you would be quite high. I would try emailing teams or ask the regional coordinator for your area to send out a request.

just my two cents

[waialua359]

As a member of the Hawaii regional planning committee, I was never aware of any costs that FIRST came up with directly in terms of setting up drayage for teams to have crates delivered to here at home.

It is something I plan to discuss at our next meeting to find out exactly how regionals handle it......whether a part or all is donated from the planning committee and/or drayage companies themselves as part of their budgets.

The issues become having to adjust travel plans to accomodate shipping, delivering and accepting robot crates while out of state, in addition to costs.

[BrendanB]

Sad to see this happen and it doesn't even effect our team!

Hopefully teams closest to a regional with forced to fly teams attending will step up and offer to host crates and transport to events!

[daniel_dsouza]

Is there anyway for teams interested in helping to sign up?

Something like this: http://www.homesforhackers.com/

[JB987]

Originally Posted by daniel_dsouza

Is there anyway for teams interested in helping to sign up?

Something like this: http://www.homesforhackers.com/

Or teams wishing to help could contact the regional director and anyone needing help could contact the director which keeps them in the loop?

[ehochstein]

Both FRC teams I have mentored are located in Bloomington, Minnesota and one is right next to the MSP airport. If any team needs drayage support in this area send me a PM and we can figure something out.

[waialua359]

We got quotes back today.

Salt Lake City to Hawaii regional-cheapest one was about $4000 one way.
The main problem with the shippers isnt the drayage/storage part, which they offered to do for free. They just wont deliver to a competitor such as FedEx, whom we wanted to use our donated airbill for.
Shepard did it in the past because they had a contract with FIRST, from what I was told this morning via email.

We are all for asking for help from other teams.
However, one thing to consider is FIRST is not responsible (nor will they help track) if your robot somehow doesnt make it back to a subsequent event.

Our team may look into it in the future with proper planning, but not at this point with our tickets already bought.

I hope that FIRST notifies RD's to check who is coming from out of state and making sure teams have all their logistics taken cared of prior to attending. Would hate to see teams assuming its the same as before, and having a crated robot stuck at a venue on a late Saturday afternoon.

[omgnocomms]

It looks like FIRST has advertised¹ and planned² a conference call about "FRC Robot Transportation". Perhaps this may be a forum to address some of these concerns.