Finally! Who has shipped?

[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.