China Robotics Challenge 2016

[Meredith Novak]

Originally Posted by bdaroz

Not that I think it's in the cards for us yet but... Just wondering out loud - what's it like getting your robot to/from? Any delays or hiccups?

No idea how they will handle regular season robot shipping. Months of turn around for the CRC. Obviously regional robots from other countries would need to be handled differently.

[pilleya]

Originally Posted by bdaroz

Not that I think it's in the cards for us yet but... Just wondering out loud - what's it like getting your robot to/from? Any delays or hiccups?

First of all FedEx can cover the cost of shipping a robot crate to one regional/in-season event via the Transport Exemption system( thanks FedEx it’s really helpful). This system works for shipping a crate to North American events and back again for us takes a long time on the return trip.

It says on the robot transportation part of the FIRST website that:

Your team may request a Robot Transport Exemption to the Regional in Australia, however your team will not be able to participate in Regional events on the following weeks: 1, 2, 4, or 5.

I suspect it would be similar to that, so teams would most likely have to organise (and also pay for) the shipping of their robot to the regional in China if they have other Regionals (which probably all attending International teams would have).

For CRC this year we removed the shooting mechanism and intake from our robot, bubble wrapped it and simply checked it in at the Airport as excess baggage. Team 3132 also did this for their robot during the official season. Obviously this system wouldn’t be very effective in seasons with tall robots like 2015 unless the robot was designed to be disassembled into small pieces. In 2015 we had to cut about a foot off the top of our robot after we qualified for CMP, in order to be able to utilise the FedEx transport exemption system( ie fit it in the crate).

We designed a lightweight folding pit structure in the 2015 off-season, and have got quite good at competing at events with a minimum amount of tools in order to minimise transport costs. We put the large bulky items in the crate, and bring tools and spares as check in luggage.

The bringing of robot batteries to the regional would most likely be a no go, international teams get two provided at events normally (which isn’t usually enough depending on the game), but International teams were lent 3 each at CRC this year. Shipping blocks of lead across the Pacific isn’t exactly very efficient either. I think the Regional Organiser would most likely organise for more batteries than usually given to International Teams. Typically at the Australia Regional, teams with large stockpiles of batteries (through KOP or purchase) lend more batteries to International teams otherwise it would be very difficult to compete especially during Eliminations (especially as sometimes the batteries provided by FIRST aren’t in the best shape). There probably aren’t very many Chinese teams with big stockpiles of batteries to lend out either.

[Howard C]

Originally Posted by Meredith Novak

No idea how they will handle regular season robot shipping. Months of turn around for the CRC. Obviously regional robots from other countries would need to be handled differently.

For international teams FIRST will contact you asking to fill out some preliminary information such as your crate size and weight as well as a shipping address. Later, we were contacted to fill out a customs declaration and a Shippers Letter of Instruction. While it may sound complicated the people I worked with at United Pacific and Patent International Logistics last year were very helpful.

There is information in the Admin Manual about shipping such as max size and weight. When I was contacted I also got a notice to international teams that robots will be held in the US in case a team is qualified for the World Championship. You can still request to have your robot shipped back earlier by contacting FIRST and forgo championship. With 2 Champs coming along they may do it differently, but it has worked pretty well so far.