[BB] Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified

[Joe G.]

Good Afternoon Teams,

This year ALL FRC Qualifying and Regional Events will be Bag & Tag. (Teams attending Championship will still have to ship their robots to St Louis.) Don’t know what Bag & Tag means? On Stop Build Day - Feb 21st teams must stop work on the robot and seal it in a giant bag (using a giant tag) that will be included in the 2012 Kit of Parts. Teams then transport the robot to and from the event on their own. Details will be included in the 2012 FRC Administrative Manual coming soon. In the meantime, reading the Bag & Tag sections of the 2011 FRC Administrative Manual Section 5 - Robot Transportationwill give you a pretty good idea of what’s involved.

In some cases, FRC will grant Bag & Tag exemptions for teams facing transportation hardships. (For instance, if you have to cross an ocean or a continent to reach the nearest event.) Teams may apply for exemption by emailing frcteams@usfirst.org. Deadline 5PM EST 12/2/11. Every exemption request should have the subject line: “Bag and Tag Exemption Request, Team XXXX”, with the team’s number in place of ‘XXXX’. The body of the request should include a very detailed explanation of why the team would experience substantial hardship in bringing their robot to the event themselves. The more detail a team is able to supply in their explanation, the more quickly FIRST HQ will be able to make their decision on the request.

These exemptions will be granted on a case-by-case basis, and only if the team would experience substantial hardship in attending the event for which an exemption was requested. We recognize teams attending second and additional events may need to travel some distance to attend those events and we will do our best to accommodate those requests. Bag and Tag exemptions will not be granted to teams participating in FIRST in Michigan or Mid-Atlantic Robotics Qualifying Events or Championships, because of their local nature.

Register for your event first, then apply for exemption. Do not wait for exemption approval from FIRST HQ before registering for events. Be aware that not all exemptions will be approved. If an exemption request is declined, FIRST will work with the team to help them resolve the issue.

Teams will be informed by reply email of acceptance or rejection of their request. Teams who ship their robots to events without prior permission risk not being allowed to participate in the event.

Now, for those of you with questions about MAR. The Mid-Atlantic Robotics Region Qualifying structure is based on the FIRST in Michigan (FiM) pilot. Teams residing in New Jersey, Delaware or the Pennsylvania counties of Berks, Bradford, Bucks, Carbon, Chester, Columbia, Dauphin, Delaware, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Lebanon, Lehigh, Luzerne, Monroe, Montgomery, Montour, Northampton,
Northumberland, Philadelphia, Pike, Schuylkill, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Wayne, Wyoming, and York
(and only teams residing in New Jersey, Delaware or the Pennsylvania counties listed above will be eligible to participate in the MAR Qualifying events. Like FiM teams, MAR teams may participate in Regional events outside the MAR system in addition to participating at MAR events. Only MAR teams may register for MAR Qualifying events or the MAR Region Championship.

Teams can verify their MAR & FiM status by looking in FRC TIMS on the Team Summary page -> Team Profile section -> Team Information row -> Summary column -> “Event Structure” status. MAR & FiM status is also displayed on the Team Information summary page in TIMS.

101 days until Kickoff
See you then!

Interesting. I wonder just how far away you need to be in order to get a shipping exemption. And short of shipping directly to the event, will teams be able to ship their robots (in bag) to a nearby location (their hotel, for example), and pick it up there? That would seem to reduce a lot of hassle.

RIP "shipdate"