pic: Surprise! Your crate was crushed by _____ .

[Tomasz Bania]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

there are little devices you can buy that you put on the outside or inside of shipping containers

to see if it gets tipped, dropped.... and how much shock and vibration the container receives in transit

Name?
Price?
Store?

Tomasz Bania

[KenWittlief]

Ive seen them on shipping docks, I dont have any supplier names or costs.

The simple ones are stick-on things, almost like labels, that contain fine colored sand in a narrow clear enclosure. The top of the enclosure is sticky like tape.

so if your container gets tipped the sand ends up stuck in the tape on the top side, and you have a clear indication your shipment was up-ended.

Other similar devices are available that trigger at certain shock and vibration levels. The intent is you can put one on every container you ship (because they are cheap) and it will tell you if the crate has been mishandled. To keep the shipping company from replaceing the ones that were triggered you can put them inside your container.

Obviously if your crate is smashed then you dont need a little device to tell you its been mishandled.

There are more sophisticated electronic devices you can ship in a container that record the shock and vibration of the entire trip, so you can analyse a typical shipment and know what you need to design your shipping containers to withstand.

[Jay H 237]

One of the things you can use to tell if you're crate has been tipped is a Tip-N-Tell. They cost just over a dollar each but there's also a minimum quantity and that's where they'd get you, especially that you're a team shipping a few items not a full scale shipping department. There's many shipping suppliers out there but we mostly use U-Line where I work.

MSC also has some shipping supplies, probably a supplier your team has used for other needs before.

[Andrew Blair]

I'm surprised at the low level of handling of these crates. I realize robot's were smashed and thats terrible, but what about companies who ship stuff Fed-Ex all the time? We are looking at a big pool (1000+ teams shipping stuff 2-5 times apiece) of examples, but the odds are still not real pleasant for an average private user. Looking at the shipping industry at a whole, I would *think* that complaints would force freighters to be more careful. Look at the airline industry: People are very rarely improperly shipped. Airlines tend to get a lot of complaints if that happens.

So, why is this happening? I can think of a few possibilities:

1. Containers are shipped this badly usually. We just need to complain more.

2. Such large containers are not commonly shipped and as a result are not handled carefully.

3. Afflicted crates are not built well, and cannot hold up during normal shipping procedures.

4. Fed-Ex puts a "FIRST ROBOT" sticker on the sides of all the crates and instructs forklift operators to search and destroy.

I kinda like # 4...

[lukevanoort]

After seeing this, I'm tempted to put a hazardous material triangle on the side of our crate saying that it is highly explosive...

[santosh]

Wow. That is horrible. We haven't gotten ours back yet. I am quite scared

[SURVIVORfan44]

I can't believe how damaged the robot is. For my old team, the regionals and championship were just the beginning. The whole life of the robot begins after that when we would show it off to companies and in front of our whole school and everything. I can't imagine how your team is taking this.