pic: Surprise! Your crate was crushed by _____ .

[pacoliketaco]

OMG! i feel very sorry for you. what are you going to do with the shipping company? This was Fed-Ex right? because that would be the free shipping that FIRST supplies, so the FIRST community needs to do something about that.

Also, our crate might have been dropped, not our robot, but our supplies, because the wheels on our cart went straight through the bottom.

[Booger]

That sucks man

[pilum40]

Originally Posted by Ellery

Yeah Crate design that is robust and light is a challenge. Our crates have been pretty robust for years but the budget reductions have brought us to a point were every once counts. We've been looking for some type of lightweight crate that can support another 600# crate stacked on top of it. Right now our robot crate is 277# empty so just adding the robot with the controllwe already makes us over the 400 # limit.

I'll have to think of something this summer.

Ellery

What do you pack your crate with to protect the bot or do you just stick the robot in the crate and hope it works when you get there? Do y'all use some type of restraining system or packing protective system? I'm a little antsy because of the electronics/CRio, etc. Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

[Andrew Schuetze]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

Secondhand info here until the Toltechs get back. From what I heard, it seemed like something large and heavy dropped through the top of the crate. And then someone removed whatever it was and replaced the crate top with a new piece of plywood.

Kevin pretty much has the second hand information straight. Shepard produced a document indicating that the crate was received damaged. I have that report. I didn't have time to start the process with FedEx until my brain had recovered from the weekend and competition and I could keep my eyes open after the bus ride back to Texas. FedEx's initial report is that their facility in Tennessee reported the crate had damage when it arrived there. The investigation continues... One can only speculate as to if a jet engine fell off a plane or if another crate slipped off the forklift.

This tragedy makes it appearant that teams must include in their budgets for the coming years estimates for drayage over-ages bills as low cost robot insurance. The championship winners, our pit neighbors, the robowizards have a diamond plate aluminum construction for their crate. Seemed like over-kill to me until Wednesday evening about 7:30 PM.

A bit of catch 22 irony is that SES would not ship our robot back to our school if the crate was still broken. We visited HomeDepot and bought 4 sticks of 2x4s, a box of 3" screws and used the 3/4 inch plywood that SES donated for a new lid.

To answer the question about internal damage. The entire crate exploded outwards when the roof collapsed. The perpetrater put a brand new piece of plywood on the top as it was completely destroyed and then used a 5 lb box of nails to get the crate back into the basic box shape.

[Gabe]

This is really unacceptable. Accidents do happen, but from what I have read the shipping company is saying that it received the crate damaged, and you know it was intact when you shipped it. So it sounds like this is a blame game. I don't think I could take it as well as you have. It it had been my robot, I would really be angry. (There are a few words I would want to add, but I'm not allowed to say them on this forum)


What came first: the student or the mentor?

[b-rant]

yeah i didn't like that shipping company "yellow transportation" at houston i was calling everyday telling them that they haven't shipped our crates off and they said it was impossible for them to still have our crates and then one day i was furious and demanded to talk to the higher up and it turns out he found where they were at while on the phone with me and he said "holy crap.....can you call us back" lol so then 2 days later we got our robot but that company didn't seem that professional

[Rohan_DHS]

OMG! Are you guys getting any sort of reimbursement for it???? Has anyone taken responsibility for it??

[Koko Ed]

Someone.Is.Getting.Sued.