Crate Help

[Mark McLeod]

The FedEx shipping is donated to teams, but please don't go over the 400 lb limit.
While being over 400 lbs will earn you additional charges from the local drayage company that stores your crate (that you will pay and may be willing to absorb), the long distance FedEx portion of it counts against FIRST HQ's allocation and FIRST HQ gets charged at the end of the year for all team FedEx overages beyond the donated shipping max.

You can put what you want in the crate, with proper outside labeling for the batteries as hazardous materials.

We try to block the frame up keeping the wheels from supporting the robot during shipping. Crate drops from loading on/off the truck and being shoved around are better absorbed by the main support frame of the robot.

We add eyelets to the sides around the bottom and midway up the crate to use as tiedown points. Then use wide straps wrapped around the robot bag mid to top points of the robot superstructure that gets tied to the mid-level eyelets. Same around the bottom.

We reinforce the walls of the lower foot or so of the crate on the two forklift ends to better sustain incidental forklift misses. I'd suggest putting the door, especially if it's hinged, on a side the forklift won't use. We've lost a couple of doors to near misses by forklift operators over the years.