This past weekend was the first bag-and-tag that 1370 has attended in a very long time. We ended up renting a 10’ UHaul and transporting our stuff up to Rutgers in it. However, based on the price, I’m not sure that we can continue doing that as a long-term viable plan.
How do other teams transport their equipment? What are the pros and cons?
We’ve bounced around getting a trailer, but the main objection is that we would still have to get a mentor or parent with a trailer hitch to drag the trailer to our events. Given where we are (Delaware), most events are 1-3 hours away without traffic. :ahh:
We actually asked for sponsorships from local storage companies, FlexBox and 1-800-HAUL-OUT and their awesome employees helped us load up our equipment and unload at Chestnut Hill. I would suggest asking local companies in your area to help out like we did!
In the past we usually hauled our tools and parts in the back of a school van or two or three. Now that we’re in the new world of bag-n-tag, the robot won’t fit in the back of a van, and lucky me gets to haul it in the back of a pickup. Fortunately we have a few pickup trucks in our family (5 at last count) so it’s not too much of a problem. And just yesterday we let one of our sons borrow the newest pickup to haul the Bit Buckets rookie robot up to Utah.
Our team trailer was the best investment we have ever made. If you are like our team, you take your robot and accessories to many other events and places besides just competitions. Having an enclosed trailer to haul things in, protect things from the weather, load ahead of time, unload when you wish, store things in, and avoid using mentors and parents pickups and vehicles is a great thing. We have our trailer parked inside our build site, and while there it is a great storage closet and a giant lockbox. On paper it takes a long time to recover the cost vs. renting, but there are many other intangible benefits to having a trailer whenever you need it. If you can swing the cost and have a place where it could be parked/stored, I highly recommend owning one.
We Bought a retired school bus for ~1K and insured it for about the same. The hard part was getting a driver so i went an got a CDL.
We took out the 3 back seats and put in a safety cage.
This summer we want to paint the bumpers red and put our # on them. I believe there is talk of upgrading the sound system as well.
Oh wow. You really shouldnt be complaining about 1-3 hours. My team traveled 10 hours to Smoky Mountains, travelling 4 hours to GTR West, 4.5 Hours to Queen City, and 11 Hours to St.Louis. I would love to only have to travel 1-3 hours.
Our Biggest sponsor Centerline](http://www.cntrline.com/) Lends us 4 Vehicles (2 mini vans, 1 pick-up truck, and an impala), along with a 12 foot trailer. But wait, there’s more. They also pay for all the Gas! So we don’t have any problem with travels costs. If you could find a sponsor willing to do this much for a team that would be the best thing for your team.
Try to find parents that can get you a sponsorship from the company they work with. Getting the Owner/Boss of that company on board with FIRST is a great way to do it. My dad’s Boss is always trying to help us out more, even if we don’t need anything. They paid for all our new pits last year, donate all the sheet metal parts for our robot, pay for traveling costs, and even donate Money at the beginning of the year.
Hope you can find a sponsor like this.
Good Luck this season!
Our team (through the school) just purchased a 6’ by 10’ trailer that has ramp and an opening that is 6’ tall (this makes the total trailer height about 7’4"). The trailer is registered to the school division (it has local government plates) and is covered by the school division’s insurance.
Total cost of the trailer was about $2500, but now we have it and don’t have to deal with the hassle of renting a box truck or organizing a fleet of mentors and/or parents.
We were very fortunate to have a trailer donated to us several years ago, and another sponsor donated the vinyl wrap that makes it look so cool.
For our travel to Atlanta 2 years ago, and Virginia last year, we rented a Sprinter Van from a local rental agency. We convinced them to give us a break on the mileage charge as sponsors of the team - they were very nice about it.
The Sprinter gets about 27 MPG on Diesel at 65 MPH, can easily carry 3 or 4 teams’ worth of stuff, has a high roof (over 7’) and really wide doors. I think for Virgina it cost us a few hundred dollars, most of that being mileage costs, so for a closer competition it may be quite reasonable.
We generally haul everything in the back of parents vehicles. When we went to Atlanta one of our sponsors allowed us to borrow their 16 foot trailer that we had a parent drive down with all of our luggage.
Past few years to haul everything back from competition my dad has been bringing us a trailer to make it simpler.
My mom (The coach of the team 2075) knows many people who have trailers so we always find someone to let us borrow one and take that to our competitions, My dad (a mentor) usually tows it.
As for 4392, we have attended one event and we rented a UHaul Trailer.
We actually rented the 10’ truck. The final price wasn’t as bad as we had feared, but it was still more than we could have hoped for. Of course, that was after Budget bailed on us with 4 hours to go before we were to pick up the truck. :ahh:
Part of what we are trying to do is to eliminate reliance on the mentor/parent vehicles. All of the mentor vehicles that could tow a trailer are unreliable enough to give us, in the words of King Julian, the “heebie-jeebies”. The one mentor that we used to use the minivan of is moving too far away at the end of the school year.
