pic: Surprise! Your crate was crushed by _____ .

[KenWittlief]

Next year, along with all the other robot requirements, they can add:

R073: The robot must be 56" tall when bolted into its crate, and able to support 600 lbs through its frame with up to 2gs of vertical acceleration, for up to 300 hours.

(problem solved!)

[Kyle Love]

Did anyone else see the crated with the hole in the side of it in Atlanta? It was by the exit of the field by the parts table. It had a huge hole in the side of it.

[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

[JulieB]

What was so freaky was it happen on the same aisle as our crate being demanded.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=47125

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by JulieB

What was so freaky was it happen on the same aisle as our crate being demanded.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=47125

Sooooooo... now we know what got dropped onto the other crate! (your crate!)

[Barry Bonzack]

My props to your team to immediately start figuring out ways to fix the problem instead of going on a rampage of a blame fist. Fix robot first, point finger later (if at all needed). A lesser group of people would give up at a sight like this. What a great show of character of your team and the teams that helped you!

[d.courtney]

heres an idea to save a robot in the future ... packing peanuts.... I can see it now, getting to a competition and as every team uncrates thousands of small packing peanuts fill the pits floor... ok maybe the idea is a bit flawed, but humurous non the less... so other then the clean up (which would be rather fun what do you think? (I suggested it to my team while packing this year, but they wouldn't hear it)... and now for the real question... what amount of damage could be saved from packing peanuts?

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by d.courtney

heres an idea to save a robot in the future ... packing peanuts.... I can see it now, getting to a competition and as every team uncrates thousands of small packing peanuts fill the pits floor... ok maybe the idea is a bit flawed, but humurous non the less... so other then the clean up (which would be rather fun what do you think? (I suggested it to my team while packing this year, but they wouldn't hear it)... and now for the real question... what amount of damage could be saved from packing peanuts?

You think something that did that to a robot would even blink at a bunch of packing peanuts?

Seriously, though. Packing peanuts are mostly intended to keep objects from violently shifting during transport. When you're trying to protect something from being crushed, you mostly put big "Do not crush" and "Fragile" stickers on it. And little pyramid things that get smashed and let you know that someone has put something on top of it. Or you build a box that can support 600 lbs on top of it and hope they don't try to put 800 lbs on top of it.

[Katie Reynolds]

Oh, man. This is why you insure your package through the shipping company. We insured our crate for $4000 (the cost of the robot plus the crate materials) just in case something like this happened - did you? =\

[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.

[KTorak]

I wish that the shipping companies would realize the how much work actually went into building these robots. I wish I could also run a test next year with our robot and add some sensors to monitor its up and down/side to side movement during shipping just to see how rough it really is.

[d.courtney]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

You think something that did that to a robot would even blink at a bunch of packing peanuts?

Seriously, though. Packing peanuts are mostly intended to keep objects from violently shifting during transport. When you're trying to protect something from being crushed, you mostly put big "Do not crush" and "Fragile" stickers on it. And little pyramid things that get smashed and let you know that someone has put something on top of it. Or you build a box that can support 600 lbs on top of it and hope they don't try to put 800 lbs on top of it.

first off I was beeing sarcastic I know it wouldn't save the robot, but I am very interested in how much of a difference it would make... if you have a robot in a crate, and you fill the crate with packing peanuts, the peanuts will act like a pillow if something falls on it, it won't protect it i know, but I am interested in seeing what the difference it will make... and besides its more of a humorous thought I've had, one of uncrating and millions of packing peanuts flowing out of the crates and onto the floor... I guess I am just a big fan of packing peanuts (and I know they wouldn't save a robot)

[Mike AA]

Originally Posted by KTorak

I wish that the shipping companies would realize the how much work actually went into building these robots. I wish I could also run a test next year with our robot and add some sensors to monitor its up and down/side to side movement during shipping just to see how rough it really is.

this would be a very interesting idea and great project for the acceleromiter and gyro, if unused on the bot. Problem being would be the power supply during shipping. But you could use the robot batteries and tie them together and have a thumbdrive as the storage drive. Maybe use something as small as a palm for the interface. Hmm, where'd my old pda go....

-Mike