I know this may be a little early, but would it be better to ship a robot (ground or air) with as many parts disconnected as possible? For example, we have a DR4B and I was wondering whether it would be a good idea to detach the DR4B from the rest of the robot so it doesn’t have the chance of bending our towers or other parts of the robot. We would still be putting all of it in a wooden crate and packing it tightly so nothing can move around.
Both ends of the dr4b would also be braced, probably with steel, just for transportation so there should hopefully be no warping there but…anything can happen.
Yes I would suggest detaching it. If your main concern is it bending the lift then definitely. If its on ground though and you aren’t going far, i don’t think you would need to. But maybe do it anyway for safety reasons.
I mean my main concern was that if it was attached, if one thing were to bend it would most likely cause other components to bend as well. The one I’m most worried about bending is the drivetrain since that would most likely have the largest affect of the rest of the robot. The only problem I can see with taking the components off is that it won’t come together exactly as it is now and may mess with things like auton and stacking.
there is definitely a chance of ruining autonomous if you take it apart but pieces bending will really mess with things. I guess its really just what risk you see as bigger. The bigger risk, don’t do that.
Most important is probably to support the robot OFF its wheels:. Use some foam blocks under the chassis to support it. Otherwise, when the shipper drops your box from s few feet in the air, your axles will bend.
Big sturdy cube, my teams use wood and then a ton of foam and bubble wrap. Disconnect anything tht will break during shipping. Tray and intakes and pack tight. maybe marking fragile will help it get better treatment. I would take the brain off in case something impacts it
Ground transport if you can. If you have a big enough vehicle it will be a lot cheaper to drive than fly. Also, My team uses foam and wood crates to transport robots. The foam helps so that the robot will not fall apart.
Whatever you do, do NOT leave it resting on the wheels. Create some sort of wooden frame to rest the robot on by the metal, not the wheels. The wheels will bend.
Yeah I was planning on taking the wheels and axles off the robot so it would just rest on the c channels (and foam underneath of course). We have a wooden crate with metal corners that’s 20x20x20 so I think that should be strong enough.