PNW Pit shipping to worlds

[Loxmyth]

My team is going through possibilities on how to get our pit to St. Louis.

One thought is that a mentor or two will tow the trailer there from here. That's roughly 2,200 miles. The gas alone makes this option fairly prohibitive. We also have access to a much larger trailer that could likely hold 4-6 teams worth of pits. If each team pitched in for gas and such, then it may be worth it.

Is anyone else doing this?

Are any PNW teams interested in this option? Nothing is set in stone yet, we are still trying to figure out what to do.

[dtengineering]

We used to have the fun of getting our robot back to Vancouver, from Toronto, as FedEx would not ship east/west across Canada... only north/south to and from the States.

We were able to book space on a semi-trailer using a Freight Broker. We used http://lantraxlogistics.com/ but there are no doubt dozens of similar companies in the Seattle or Portland area who would be delighted to help you solve your transportation issues.

You might find similar services described as a "freight forwarder" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freight_forwarder).

In any case, there are thousands of semi-trailers crossing the USA every day. Your robot and pit could be on one.

Heck, now that I think about it, PNW FIRST has had two semis criss-crossing the Pacific Northwest for almost two months. It might be cheapest to have two or three common loading points, and put all the PNW cargo into one big trailer. (Actually... with that many teams going, it might well take two loads...)

Jason

P.S. And if you can get it all organized to ship the robots on a private trailer, maybe there are enough people going to charter a jet.... "Hey, Boeing... any chance we can borrow a few BBJ's for the weekend?"

[Thad House]

Originally Posted by dtengineering

Heck, now that I think about it, PNW FIRST has had two semis criss-crossing the Pacific Northwest for almost two months. It might be cheapest to have two or three common loading points, and put all the PNW cargo into one big trailer. (Actually... with that many teams going, it might well take two loads...)

They did this last year, but they do not plan on doing it again this year. I think the main reason for this is union issues they ran into in St. Louis. Since they took it in a semi, the union charged a TON of money to use the docks at the dome. I don't think PNW FIRST wants to deal with this again, because it was a pain last year.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by Thad House

They did this last year, but they do not plan on doing it again this year. I think the main reason for this is union issues they ran into in St. Louis. Since they took it in a semi, the union charged a TON of money to use the docks at the dome. I don't think PNW FIRST wants to deal with this again, because it was a pain last year.

Yes they wanted to charge each team $1000 for moving the crates from the truck to the pit space and back. FIRST WA was able to talk FIRST into covering those costs.

So yeah having it shipped via one of the trailers PNW FIRST has been using for the district events or a common carrier is out of the question as it would be prohibitively expensive.

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by Thad House

They did this last year, but they do not plan on doing it again this year. I think the main reason for this is union issues they ran into in St. Louis. Since they took it in a semi, the union charged a TON of money to use the docks at the dome. I don't think PNW FIRST wants to deal with this again, because it was a pain last year.

Thanks for the note... I had no idea that this had occurred. What a shame that it didn't work out well.

Thanks for the info,

Jason

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by dtengineering

Thanks for the note... I had no idea that this had occurred. What a shame that it didn't work out well.

Thanks for the info,

Jason

Yea many teams freaked out when they were presented with a $1000 bill but Adrienne quickly put an end to that so a number of teams didn't realize that they were almost on the hook for twice as much money to move the crate from the truck to the pit and back as they had payed for moving the crate from the Washington FIRST Robotics Fieldhouse in Kent WA to the EJ Dome in St Louis and back.

[Navid Shafa]

My Dad and Stephanie are on the road. On board are pallets for 360, 948, 1318, 1983, 2522, 2930, 3787, 4488. Here's to wishing them safe and speedy travels. We'll be unloading on Wednesday.

[GeeTwo]

It's probably too late for this year, but if PODS (Portable On-Demand Storage) or a similar company is available in your area, it may be a simple and not-too-expensive way to get several teams' equipment to CMP. In general, the more you can containerize a shipment (that is, reduce the number of pieces the shipper must handle), the less it costs to move.

We don't have quite as far to travel (671 miles according to google), but yes, we're bringing a few items for SS Prometheus (Team 2992) as well as our whole pit, practice 'bot, and some backup stock and tools in our brand new trailer - the graphics wrap was applied yesterday. I'll post pics after championships, but it's definitely worth seeing - green, hundreds of gears, several tigers, sprockets, sponsors, and a liberal dose of over-the-top. Thank you, thank you, thank you, to Ingersoll Rand Foundation and all our sponsors!

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

...we're bringing...our...practice 'bot...

You know that's not generally approved of, right?

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

You know that's not generally approved of, right?

Practice bot just isn't allowed in the venue. No reason it can't sit in their trailer in the event they need to pull a COTS part off of it.

[FrankJ]

Originally Posted by Cory

Practice bot just isn't allowed in the venue. No reason it can't sit in their trailer in the event they need to pull a COTS part off of it.

I agree with you in principle... But there was considerable discussion on this last year. Reconizing that was 2014 rules. The consensus of the LRIs on the the list & Q&As was the trailer was considered part of the venue as far as practice bots were concerned. That same discussion has not seemed to come up this year. Maybe because of the one and only one load in of fabricated parts rule. Maybe because, wisely?, no one has asked.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by FrankJ

I agree with you in principle... But there was considerable discussion on this last year. Reconizing that was 2014 rules. The consensus of the LRIs on the the list & Q&As was the trailer was considered part of the venue as far as practice bots were concerned. That same discussion has not seemed to come up this year. Maybe because of the one and only one load in of fabricated parts rule. Maybe because, wisely?, no one has asked.

Actually, R17 seems to be pretty clear. You can bring it with you and use it for COTS stuff, just not fabricated stuff.

[Dunngeon]

Originally Posted by Loxmyth

My team is going through possibilities on how to get our pit to St. Louis.

One thought is that a mentor or two will tow the trailer there from here. That's roughly 2,200 miles. The gas alone makes this option fairly prohibitive. We also have access to a much larger trailer that could likely hold 4-6 teams worth of pits. If each team pitched in for gas and such, then it may be worth it.

Is anyone else doing this?

Are any PNW teams interested in this option? Nothing is set in stone yet, we are still trying to figure out what to do.

One option we've considered is shipping our Pit stuff in a separate crate to St. Louis. Generally, because money is an issue, we ship only what is required (Robot, tools) plus whatever else we can fit in the single crate. It isn't the most elegant solution, nor is it preferred, but it's what we have to work with.

[Navid Shafa]

Originally Posted by Loxmyth

My team is going through possibilities on how to get our pit to St. Louis.

One thought is that a mentor or two will tow the trailer there from here. That's roughly 2,200 miles. The gas alone makes this option fairly prohibitive. We also have access to a much larger trailer that could likely hold 4-6 teams worth of pits. If each team pitched in for gas and such, then it may be worth it.

Is anyone else doing this?

Are any PNW teams interested in this option? Nothing is set in stone yet, we are still trying to figure out what to do.

My dad and I did this back in 2013. We had tools and pit stuff from over a dozen PNW teams. It was certainly a trip to remember...

He's doing it again this year with stuff from about a dozen teams. I know many of the spots are already reserved or starting to fill up. Feel free to shoot me a private message with your e-mail address and I can get you in touch with him.

[Loxmyth]

Originally Posted by Navid Shafa

My dad and I did this back in 2013. We had tools and pit stuff from over a dozen PNW teams. It was certainly a trip to remember...

He's doing it again this year with stuff from about a dozen teams. I know many of the spots are already reserved or starting to fill up. Feel free to shoot me a private message with your e-mail address and I can get you in touch with him.

PM sent. If you don't have room for us, we may be interested in being an overflow for teams that you can't handle. We have a tri-axle trailer available that could fit a bunch of pits.