Excess freight charges

[Donut]

If your drayage facility for your first event is local, I believe you can drive it to the drayage facility (not directly to the regional venue). There's a number of regulations involved though.

We incurred a $50 charge for being overweight last year, and will incurr the same one again this year.

[yodameister]

Originally Posted by Donut

If your drayage facility for your first event is local, I believe you can drive it to the drayage facility (not directly to the regional venue). There's a number of regulations involved though.

We incurred a $50 charge for being overweight last year, and will incurr the same one again this year.

Yes, I'll be driving the crate to the drayage facility in Phoenix. How much were you overweight, and was the charge just for the Phoenix regional?

[Donut]

I think we were somewhere in the range of 415-430 lbs. If your crate is anywhere between 401 lbs. and 500 lbs. you will have to pay the same fee due to them rounding up to the next hundred weight.

The only competition we went to last year was Phoenix, so yes, that was just for that regional. Since we plan on going to both the Championship and the Arizona Regional this year, we expect to have to pay this fee twice, once for each competition.

[Eric O]

Although shipping charges can be annoying and a high additional cost added to every teams already stretched budget, I think the rules are spelled out clearly in the manual. Like all the other rules this year, read the shipping rules!. There are things that must be in the crate and things that don't have to be. I believe the charges are also discussed right in the manual. Don't forget that rules change from year to year, so when you get the manual tomorrow, make it someone’s job to learn the shipping rules. Also, for non-robot items (since I am assuming the rules for robot shipping will be similar this year), a U-Haul trailer is relatively inexpensive to rent if your mentor has a vehicle that can tow. A 6'x12' trailer is only $30/day, unlimited mileage. We are all lucky to have fed-ex pay for some shipping, and I think by building lighter crates and only putting in the necessities, teams can avoid the hundreds in overweight charges.

-Eric

Edit: As I downloaded my manual today, I noticed that Part 4: "Robot Transportation" was one of the non locked sections. FIRST has provided 22 pages worth of information on just shipping the robot and some of the details are definately new.