Between age and airline handling, some of our totes have cracked, and I expect more to wear out in the next year or two. I’d like to have replacements on hand before I need them. Has anyone found a good source for the same totes that FIRST uses for KoP?
ULine has a product that looks right, but none of their dimensions match what’s listed in this year’s KoP checklist (18" x 27" x 13".) Home Depot sells something similar, but they’re smaller and a little flimsy, there’s no way they stand up to the abuse ours take. (We had to hand-truck ours from our hotel to the venue in Milwaukee last weekend. Of course some got dropped!)
FIRST has provided totes from various companies over the years, most of which are the same size and nest inside each other just fine. The most common I have found are the Orbis and Monoflo brands.
Since you are in SoCal, the best/fastest place to get them is McMaster. They carry the Orbis bins in the correct size (as is usual with McMaster, though, they do not tell you the brand).
For those who might care, the monoflo blue is quite a bit lighter than the orbis blue. The orbis blue is more of a true royal blue color, where the monoflo tote is a lighter baby blue/teal color. We much prefered the royal blue Orbis totes since they matched our team identity standards better. The grays and reds of the two brands are quite similar though.
Ace hardware used to stock the Monoflo totes in black, and they still have them on their website for ~$15, but they do not appear to have them in stock anywhere. It is also not a stocked color from Monoflo unless you order 500+ for a custom lot.
Hope this helps!
Edit: Do not order the clear ones. They are made from polypropylene and are much weaker.
Travis, I’m very amused yet not one bit surprised that you’re the one to reply to this thread. It’s your attention to details like this that helps make Team 254 what it is today.
Thanks, Travis. I’ll have to check the Ace over in Carmel Valley, they’ve occasionally stocked odd things I didn’t expect to find.
I took a closer look at this year’s KoP tote, and it is indeed an Orbis FP243. (I’m sure we’ve got Monoflo totes, but they put their name somewhere else, and I didn’t care to dump totes to find it.) I took a measuring tape to it, and it looks like what Uline stocks as S-9745. (No surprise there, they’re both Wisconsin companies.) $21-23 each depending on quantity. I’ll have to see if they ship out of Ontario, CA. Plus, they come in 1622 black! ::safety::
laugh Clear totes… yeah, we had to use one of those last week. It made it to Milwaukee with two batteries inside, but it wasn’t going to make it back. That just gave added urgency to giving away all the buttons we brought with! We needed that tote empty!