pic: Surprise! Your crate was crushed by _____ .

[Andrew Schuetze]

loading photo ...

[Joe Matt]

WHERE DID IT ALL GO?

[henryBsick]

!?!?!

Did you recieve any contact of any kind from the shipping company?

[miketwalker]

What did the shipping company have to say about this happening?

[sanddrag]

What in the world happened!?!? That is insane! Details please!

[Dan Petrovic]

Who can honestly sleep after being a part of something like this?

The shipping companies are being paid big bucks to safely transport expensive machines that students spend hundreds of hours building, and this is how they treat the crates?

[travis48elite]

THAT IS A TEAM'S WORST NIGHTMARE! That would leave me speechless and at the same time crying!

[Rohan_DHS]

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

[spears312]

First I saw a pic of a robot who's crate fell apart (and survived) now a pic of a robot nearly obliterated by something crushing it. That looks pretty bad but I suppose it got fixed. Did they mention exactly what caused that damage?

[Koko Ed]

Someone.Is.Getting.Sued.

[Jay H 237]

Was the crate actually crushed from the outside or was the damage done by other stuff shipped within the crate? I ask because the visible walls of the crate appear intact and still square in the pic.

Do you have any pics of the overall crate?

[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.

[KenWittlief]

ok, so I guess its time for FIRST to either

A. host a crate design contest. Points awarded on cost, amount of weight the crate can support on its top before it collapses, how far it can be dropped before it breaks open, and simplicity of construction. Winning design becomes the standard FIRST robot crate

or

2. supply a baseline crate design like they do for the low cost field design

?

[JaneYoung]

I think those are a couple of swell ideas, Ken.

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

ok, so I guess its time for FIRST to either

A. host a crate design contest. Points awarded on cost, amount of weight the crate can support on its top before it collapses, how far it can be dropped before it breaks open, and simplicity of construction. Winning design becomes the standard FIRST robot crate

or

2. supply a baseline crate design like they do for the low cost field design

?

[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