Kit Shipping¶

Part of the Kit Team's responsibilities cover moving either whole or parts of kits around the UK and the world. This is generally referred to as shipping (even though it rarely involves ships!). All movement of kit is managed by the Kit Team, so please do not ship anything without first speaking to them.

Almost all shipping requirements happen at well defined points throughout the Student Robotics calendar. When kits or parts therefore need to be shipped specific procedures are followed as detailed in the Procedures chapter.

When kits or parts of kit are being shipped they must be suitably packaged to prevent them from being damaged. Details of the packaging requirements are detailed in the Packaging chapter.

Some parts of the kit require special attention when being shipped. The Couriers chapter includes information on these requirements along with some general information about the parts commonly shipped.

Kit Maintenance¶

At the end of each Competition Programme Year (denoted by the kit return deadline) all of the kit parts require cataloguing, cleaning, testing, repairing (where necessary) and packing back into kits ready for the following competition programme year. These tasks are carried out at the Kit Collation Event and the Kit Packing Event.

The Kit Collation Event is a week long event that occurs towards the end of July/start of August. At the event, all of the kits from the previous Competition Programme Year are unpacked and the contents catalogued, cleaned and tested. The week starts with complete untested kits and ends with separate boxes of parts (i.e. all parts of one type collected together) tested as working. Any parts found to be defective are to be repaired or disposed of before the Kit Packing Event.

The Kit Packing Event is a two day weekend event that occurs at the end of August/start of September. The sorted and tested parts from the Kit Collation Event are packed into kits ready for handing to teams. The consumable parts of the kit are also prepared and packed, such as the wire and camcon connectors. At the end of the week all of the kits are strapped to a pallet ready to be shipped to our post handling provider.

Attribution

This page is based on work done by Richard Barlow, originally published at https://srobo-legacy.gitbooks.io/student-robotics-kit-logistics/kit-transport.html, which was under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA.