Finally! Who has shipped?

[Aaron Lussier]

Yea it's crated up... It's not done and It can't do what we designed it to do but thats becide the point right... It's all about the fun.

-Aaron

[bstempi]

Team 708 isn't that bad off. Once we find out how much underweight we are, we'll see if we can add any bracing. We have a slight problem handeling sideways twisting and with skid steering. Other than that, we're pretty good. We stuck the bot in the box last night at 10:30 and shrink wrapped the crate. Luckey us that we can ship right from the school

[Lord Nerdlinger]

We shipped ours..

and considering it still doesn't move, i'd say we have quite a bit of work to do at the regional..

although all our subsystems work pefectly...

I think we did things in the wrong order

[DirtyBird213]

We crated at noon and packed up the robot and batteries. We then thought we would be clever and drive the robot to our FEDEX facility. When we got inside we found out that they do not accept any packages over 150 pounds. So we scrambled to call the freight pick up and got our robot loaded from in front of the school at 4:35pm. Now I can breath again!!!! So lesson learned- Don't be clever just call and get it picked up.

[Madison]

Since I've been sitting in bed sick, I have no idea if or when our robot was shipped -- but I'm sure happy that it's gone

[OneAngryDaisy]

FedEx told us they'd be here between 3 and 5 in the afternoon... We started welding the final pieces on the frame at 3 PM, and just as luck had it, the FedEx guy walked right in at 3:10... And then we discovered that a brace in our crate wouldn't allow our robot to go in fully, so after much chaos Miss Daisy sped away...

[ReggieB]

449 shipped, but just barely. We crated at 7pm wed, fully driving, all systems opperational. Pictures:
http://www.mbhs.edu/~aajohnso/robo04/
Latest are at "final tests".

Now, here's what i did today:
Only two people showed up to the robot meeting , as we had already crated, so i left. As i was leaving, i saw our treasurer in the hall, so i started talking to her about our financial situation. One of our mentors came by and asked if the crate went out. I had no clue. So i run down to the dock. As i'm going down that back hall i start thinking "have some faith, it will have shipped". Well it hadn't. So i call our main teacher sponsor, Dr. D, and run back to the room to talk to the other teachers. I determine that due to a mixup, no one had called FedEx. It's now 3:30. So i call Dr. D back, get the account number and such, and call up fedex. Their automated system thought it was going to be picked up from some other location (possibly we got someone else's label). After talking to two people, and waiting on hold, i get them to arrange a pickup. They then ask for the ship to zip code. I had no clue, so i run back to the loading dock and read it off of the crate. They sent a truck, and said "It'll be there by 5:40 or 6". I'm thinking oh crap, it has to be sent by 5. But there wasnt anything she could do. I go back to the room, and decide that i should probably try and meet the fedex guy so that there arent any problems. I call fedex back to have them give me a call when the guy gets there, and after like 5 min. of searching through their computer the guy finds the order and adds the phone number. At 4:40 i get a phone message, saying that he is here, but there is a car in the way and he can only wait around for 10 min. So i sprint out there to talk to the guy, we made an announcement to try and find the owner of the car. As we're waiting i'm trying to talk to him to keep him interested and there as long as possible. At 4:46 the car got moved. I started thinking "wouldnt it be cool if we shipped at 4:49?" (we are team 449) but alas it took him until 4:53 to get the crate in the truck. So the robot made it on the truck, with 7 min. to spare.
Disaster avoided.

The fedex guy said that he had picked up one other crate that day, and other drivers had picked up a bunch more. Everyone on the phone also seemed to know about it. Guess they got a lot of calls lately.

[Jonathan M.]

Our robot shipped around noon today. I'm so sad that it's gone. Now what will I do after school? Stupid drummer lives to far away to just go to his house so my band can rehearse.. OH! Homework... Yeah, maybe I should catch up a little. I can't wait for UCF. From what I hear from Ms. O (mentor leader) the autonomous mode works, and every thing is in order. I'm glad about that. Snow kept me from getting out there to see it shipped off. Does anyone else have nightmares about the fed ex truck never making it to the competition? I'll worry every night until March 11th. *sweat drop* Lol. Well It'll be okay I'm sure.

[KTBSPASonya858]

Shipped yesterday sometime around 1 pm.

[Elgin Clock]

The one word I have heard about a dozen times from my team was "Airbills??"

Arghh... I guess our robot did ship on time, but not under the free credit provided by FIRST... Lost airbills = $700 bill to ship robot from NJ to CT...

Live and learn people... Live and learn...

[Rich Wong]

FedEx guys shows up at 10:30AM (early).
(I was not happy)

Sent him away and told him to come back later.
(he was not too happy)

First team got pickup at 3:30pm.
Second and third team got pickup at 4:00pm.
Fourth team got pickup at 6:30PM!
(Team4 was definitely not happy)

Took the team captains & coaches to dinner and celebrated at Applebee!
(Everyone was happy.... except the guy who paid ...me not happy with the bill)

This was a tough day..... but I'm happy it is over.

[srjjs]

Shipped today. I miss it already.

[MisterX]

I would like to announace that for the first time in team 521 history we had our last screw into the crate before the FEDEX truck showed up ( often the robot isn't even in)!!!!! The last sheet of wrap was cut at appox. 2:47 and the robot was officially off of our hands at 3:56. At the time of ship we weighed apporx. 129 and had "functional" dead reackoning for both sides of field and a line tracker. All that we should have to be doing in the pits is fine tuning!

P.S. best of luck to everbody this year and to all those with shipping woes my heart goes out to you as we have been there before all to often.

[Billfred]

1293 was in the hizzouse at about 10:30 making the final rounds of shrink wrap.

Actually, we were out of the hizzouse. We were just outside the lab where we were building, standing in SLEET and working on securing the robot and the small bags of parts by the high beams of my Civic.

I believe that 1293 will need about 20-30 minutes of final prep--we have to mount our protection (the front off a retired Piggly Wiggly shopping cart), and get our LEDs working the way we want 'em to. Oh, and get the numbers on the robot.

I think that's about all we have to do...oh, and tell the visiting teams how to survive Columbia, SC. (We're gonna be at the Palmetto regional in the mah-velous Colonial Center, all of ten minutes away from Irmo High School--slightly longer for the rest of 1293's better halves.)