Air Travel Advice

[Fausto Vazquez]

Hi

We had traveled from Mexico to US , 4 years and besides all the good advices that other had posted, another important is the battery handle , we had been requested to ship the robot without batteries to be able to sent it by the carrier and avoid issues at the border.

Besides of the 2 batteries that regional or championship provides us *we had contact them before to confirm it, our strategy, it is buy extra batteries by internet and send it to the hotel where we will stay, use at the regional and if we pass to the championship, we shipped it to San Louis, after the champions ends we give them away to one team in US as a gift,(Our robot can be sit at the border forever due to the batteries so we prefer give it away)

It not cheap but at least we have been able to assure some extra batteries for the game.

I do not if the same applies for the Canadian/US border, so investigate this point before to ship your robot.

Hopefully one year you decided to go further to south and come to Mexico City Regional.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Madison

We've only lost one kid so far and we got him back after not too long.

To help keep the kids on top of their game, I remind them that the school board considers a grade of 97 an A+, so we can lose 3% of the kids and still be considered excellent.

[lanna.stars]

Originally Posted by Fausto Vazquez

Hi

We had traveled from Mexico to US , 4 years and besides all the good advices that other had posted, another important is the battery handle , we had been requested to ship the robot without batteries to be able to sent it by the carrier and avoid issues at the border.

Besides of the 2 batteries that regional or championship provides us *we had contact them before to confirm it, our strategy, it is buy extra batteries by internet and send it to the hotel where we will stay, use at the regional and if we pass to the championship, we shipped it to San Louis, after the champions ends we give them away to one team in US as a gift,(Our robot can be sit at the border forever due to the batteries so we prefer give it away)

It not cheap but at least we have been able to assure some extra batteries for the game.

I do not if the same applies for the Canadian/US border, so investigate this point before to ship your robot.

Hopefully one year you decided to go further to south and come to Mexico City Regional.

We have crossed the Border before numerous times with the robot and batteries before as well as we have shipped the robot with no issues (except when we shipped it to the wrong location). How about tools? We usually have a huge toolbox and setup when we go to the State Regionals we drive too because we have room on the bus, plus a few Mentors drive down. Any advice about how this would work out? Thanks!

[Fausto Vazquez]

How about tools? We usually have a huge toolbox and setup when we go to the State Regionals we drive too because we have room on the bus, plus a few Mentors drive down. Any advice about how this would work out?

In our case normally the robot is shipped by air so probably this is reason of the battery handle.
Regarding tools, we usually bring this at airplane, we document extra binder with us without exceding the max weigth allow by airline(we pay the extra charge) , obsviously we limited the number of tools to the basic one.

some airline charge more for a 3rd box or binder than for a 2nd, so we document one extra for each mentor or team responsible instead to document it to a single person.

Besides we split mainly the manual tools in small package and ask to team members to put it their bags * this works only with tools that can pass the security point without issues.

When we need a specific tool that we do not carry, we trust on the gracious professional of the other teams and the support of the regional workshop, this helps to improve our relationship with them.