Time to revive a best practice thread for packing robots for World Championships.
Our hand me down shipping container is going to be too small for our robot this year and we have a second team going, so we need to make a new ones. So what are cost effective containers for our 18x18x18 bots? Clearly, we want to be as thrifty as possible.
The most thrifty is an 18x18x18 box inside a 24x24x24 box. Fill in between the boxes with bubble wrap.
Well even more thrifty is shove it in the trunk and let it bounce around.
OK, don’t flame me, this is not thrifty, but after using them for our 3rd World trip for both our robots and tournaments, they have been worth the investment. And you can get wheels for them and straps. And…maybe you can sell them to a new team when you are done:
If you can’t afford pelicans, you could always make your own crates. My school has 8 (soon to be 9) crates made of 3/4" plywood that are about 20"x20"x20" inside. We put dense foam on the bottom, put the robot in, and then use more dense foam between every side and the robot, as well as the top to keep the robot steady in transit. This seems to work well, and we’ve taken them on flights before. You can also drill out holes for wheels to be added and add handles and bars for locks.