This will be our first time to register for the championship event. We drive the three hours to our regional and always pack a van with spare parts and most all of our tools. More than likely we will fly to Atlanta. (I don’t want to spend 18 hours on a bus with kids :ahh: ) That means that if I don’t want to try and check a tool box as luggage we will need to ship tools to Atlanta. Who’s done this and what did it cost? I don’t want to pay loads of drayage fees so I am thinking of sending the tool crate after we return from our regional and have it arrive at the drayage site for less than a week. Is this possible and will they deliver it with our robot crate without going through the FIRST drayage system? I read in an old post that some teams ship tools to their hotel in Atlanta. Who’s done that and what carrier did you use? Lots of questions and figuires to nail down for the budget process.
I can’t remember who we used for shipping, but we just threw tools into our crate until we came close to the limit. The rest we brought as luggage. Usually we’d try and nicely pack our tools into this tool chest thing we built from wood and pegboard, but when we open it after its been shipped most of the tools come pouring out.
you can ship a second crate…lots of teams do it…it isn’t actually all that expensive
Another idea that my team did was ship our stuff on a pallet to a team that was in the area…well it happened to be another team that was sponsored by the same company (Baxter) so it made it a little easier, but whatever.
We ( on my previous team) sent a few people in a truck towing a trailer which had mixed supplies, numerouse VCRS, tools, table, food and drinks. You wouldnt believe the crazy fun you can have as a 20yr old with a couple older guys and at 1am driving through indiana.
I think the idea of getting stuff shipped to the hotel would be the next best thing?
We built a brand new tool crate last year(the one from the previous year was crushed during shipping).
It’s lighter than our robot crate but it did make it back intact. From what I was told to keep costs down it’s best to keep the weight under 400 lbs. but I do not know what we paid to ship the tools.
=). our teachers had to put up with us and another school for 18 hours to atlanta. it can be done, just not the most pleasant thing in the world to do, by any stretch of the imagination!
Last year our team sent two crates one with the robot controlls and some spare materials and we sent another crate that had all of our tools and any other spare parts and materials we needed and also team spirit things, once opened doubles as a cart to put the robot on, we unboarded it and put the casters on it and we had a cart. This year we will most likely do the same thing but this year the cart will be motorized and still become a crate after a competion.
We always ship our tools in the crate with our robot. However, if you take my advice be ready to pay a several hundred dollar bill for being overweight.
190 tends to fly with their tools. Most airlines allow each passenger to carry 2 or 3 50-70 pound “suitcases,” so we divide all our stuff into plastic bins and send one per person (or sometimes two per person, since many people can manage to fit four days of clothes into a carry-on bag).
We once had a tube of lithuim grease removed from a suitcase by TSA, but we’ve never had any other major trouble with security.
If you do this, make sure you check how much the airlines allow you to carry.
We decided to do this with all my junk when I moved out here instead of shipping it, but we found that the limit was 50 lbs (And I’m pretty sure it’s the same for most major airlines). You definitely dont want to get hit with the fine they charge if they decide to be jerks about it and get you for anything that’s over.
^Yup, it definately pays to check. The interesting thing is that the discount carriers such as AirTran, JetBlue, and Southwest limit you to 3 70 pound bags, while the more expensive carriers like United, USAir, Delta, and American usually limit you to 2 50 pound bags.
