Bag & Tag: What were the best practices?

[ajlapp]

We bagged the bot and put it on a small hand cart.

It can be tricky to maneuver the bot by hand when it's in the bag....tough to get a hand hold sometimes.

[kgzak]

the bag is very slick and if you robot is to maximum dimensions it is even harder to grab on to. Take the off any side plates that might be on I would the robot so you can get a better grip if you can't reach under your robot in the bag. cover any "sharp" edges (points or other small ended structure) that may cut into the bag. Pool noodles work great for that. Keep the bumpers off. It is really bad when you are on your way to competition but can't get your robot out of the build room because the bumpers are on and you are too big for the door. When putting the robot in the bag open it all the way and fold/roll down the sides. then pick up the robot and set it on top of the bag and roll the sides up. It makes it much easier when your robot is really tall and need to use the whole bag. Take all your tools and batteries off the robot so you can put them away and charge them. this also allows you to weigh the robot while it is the bag so you can see what you have to do in you un-bagging time. I like the bag and tag system. The only big problem is what to transport it in. I transported it last year in the back of my Ford Explorer but if no one has a big car to put it in there might be a small problem.

[Karibou]

Originally Posted by ajlapp

We bagged the bot and put it on a small hand cart.

That's what we did as well for transporting it, but when the robot didn't need to be anywhere, it remained off the cart and on one of our shelves (we didn't have the space, and needed the cart for our "dummy bot")
. It makes getting the robot between the trailer and the pit a lot easier.

[Bruce Newendorp]

Team 525 built a pallet that fit to the bottom of the robot with four 1/4" screws. We placed the pallet on the floor with the 4 screws sticking up, set the bag in place, poked the 4 screws through the bottom of the bag, rolled down the bag, placed and bolted the robot onto the pallet, rolled up the bag and sealed it.

This leaves the pallet outside the bag for easy handling and securing the robot inside the shipping crate when we needed to ship it to the second regional which was a non-bag event.

[RoboMom]

Just launched in the NEMO resources.
http://www.firstnemo.org/resources.htm

Bag and Tag Tips.
Thanks to all who contributed!