Tower Transportation

[Orion66]

For out of state or long-distance tournaments that require travel via airplane, what are you guys doing for transporting your towers? They are rather large and fragile...and are possibly too big to carry-on. Is carrying on at all possible with builds of this size? And if not, how are you ensuring that the tower doesn't arrive as a pile of splintered balsa?

[ashmmohan]

For out of state or long-distance tournaments that require travel via airplane, what are you guys doing for transporting your towers? They are rather large and fragile...and are possibly too big to carry-on. Is carrying on at all possible with builds of this size? And if not, how are you ensuring that the tower doesn't arrive as a pile of splintered balsa?

We use a rather large pelican; we cut out a slot that holds our tower with little wiggle room from styrofoam. Nothing broke on our tower when we flew to Cornell. What invitational are you headed to?

[Orion66]

We're headed to the MIT invitational. I think we saw Boca Raton High School there last year too. And, the Styrofoam is a good idea; we might end up using something like that. Thanks!

[dhdarren]

For out of state or long-distance tournaments that require travel via airplane, what are you guys doing for transporting your towers? They are rather large and fragile...and are possibly too big to carry-on. Is carrying on at all possible with builds of this size? And if not, how are you ensuring that the tower doesn't arrive as a pile of splintered balsa?

We use a rather large pelican; we cut out a slot that holds our tower with little wiggle room from styrofoam. Nothing broke on our tower when we flew to Cornell. What invitational are you headed to?

What kind of box did you use to carry the tower? I've been having trouble find an actual box to contain the tower, and I had no choice but to just keep it in a un-lidded plastic box for my last invitational. I looked through the inventory of my local Home Depot as well as Lowe's, but couldn't find a suitable box of reasonable size. If possible, could you link me to where you got a box, or if you made one, etc, how? Thanks so much!

[ashmmohan]

We're headed to the MIT invitational. I think we saw Boca Raton High School there last year too. And, the Styrofoam is a good idea; we might end up using something like that. Thanks!

I'll see you at MIT...good luck transporting!

[ashmmohan]

For out of state or long-distance tournaments that require travel via airplane, what are you guys doing for transporting your towers? They are rather large and fragile...and are possibly too big to carry-on. Is carrying on at all possible with builds of this size? And if not, how are you ensuring that the tower doesn't arrive as a pile of splintered balsa?

We use a rather large pelican; we cut out a slot that holds our tower with little wiggle room from styrofoam. Nothing broke on our tower when we flew to Cornell. What invitational are you headed to?

What kind of box did you use to carry the tower? I've been having trouble find an actual box to contain the tower, and I had no choice but to just keep it in a un-lidded plastic box for my last invitational. I looked through the inventory of my local Home Depot as well as Lowe's, but couldn't find a suitable box of reasonable size. If possible, could you link me to where you got a box, or if you made one, etc, how? Thanks so much!

We use pelicans to transport our towers. Here is a link to one of them: https://www.amazon.com/Pelican-1650-Cam ... lican+case. They are quite expensive, but they are the toughest cases you can find. I'm sure if you do your research, you can find cheaper alternatives. We use them for almost all events, whether it be hovercraft or forensics. They are very useful.

[andrewwski]

I use Pelican cases to transport small satellites via airplane, they really are good cases. Although if you take them as carry-on luggage, it's probably overkill. (If you're flying a regional jet, keep in mind that the overhead bins are smaller and that large items need to be gate checked - you don't want baggage handlers handling your case!)

[Orion66]

For out of state or long-distance tournaments that require travel via airplane, what are you guys doing for transporting your towers? They are rather large and fragile...and are possibly too big to carry-on. Is carrying on at all possible with builds of this size? And if not, how are you ensuring that the tower doesn't arrive as a pile of splintered balsa?

We use a rather large pelican; we cut out a slot that holds our tower with little wiggle room from styrofoam. Nothing broke on our tower when we flew to Cornell. What invitational are you headed to?

What kind of box did you use to carry the tower? I've been having trouble find an actual box to contain the tower, and I had no choice but to just keep it in a un-lidded plastic box for my last invitational. I looked through the inventory of my local Home Depot as well as Lowe's, but couldn't find a suitable box of reasonable size. If possible, could you link me to where you got a box, or if you made one, etc, how? Thanks so much!

I wish we could have a pelican case...but instead, we took thick cardboard from a television box and glued, taped, folded it, etc, into a tall cardboard box for our tower. While it isn't perfect, the cardboard (approx. 0.5-0.75cm thick) is strong enough to stop most punctures, and the box as a whole is resistant to collapsing in on itself (i.e. from collision with other heavy luggage). We packed the box with styrofoam and some shredded paper--which is actually surprisingly good packing material--and put old towers in and threw it around, dropped it, etc. The tower survived without any breaks.

[dhdarren]

We use a rather large pelican; we cut out a slot that holds our tower with little wiggle room from styrofoam. Nothing broke on our tower when we flew to Cornell. What invitational are you headed to?

What kind of box did you use to carry the tower? I've been having trouble find an actual box to contain the tower, and I had no choice but to just keep it in a un-lidded plastic box for my last invitational. I looked through the inventory of my local Home Depot as well as Lowe's, but couldn't find a suitable box of reasonable size. If possible, could you link me to where you got a box, or if you made one, etc, how? Thanks so much!

I wish we could have a pelican case...but instead, we took thick cardboard from a television box and glued, taped, folded it, etc, into a tall cardboard box for our tower. While it isn't perfect, the cardboard (approx. 0.5-0.75cm thick) is strong enough to stop most punctures, and the box as a whole is resistant to collapsing in on itself (i.e. from collision with other heavy luggage). We packed the box with styrofoam and some shredded paper--which is actually surprisingly good packing material--and put old towers in and threw it around, dropped it, etc. The tower survived without any breaks.

Yep, a pelican case would also be quite a bit out of the range for our team's budget, but self-formed cardboard box would work great for me! Thanks for the idea

[JojoCho]

What kind of box did you use to carry the tower? I've been having trouble find an actual box to contain the tower, and I had no choice but to just keep it in a un-lidded plastic box for my last invitational. I looked through the inventory of my local Home Depot as well as Lowe's, but couldn't find a suitable box of reasonable size. If possible, could you link me to where you got a box, or if you made one, etc, how? Thanks so much!

I wish we could have a pelican case...but instead, we took thick cardboard from a television box and glued, taped, folded it, etc, into a tall cardboard box for our tower. While it isn't perfect, the cardboard (approx. 0.5-0.75cm thick) is strong enough to stop most punctures, and the box as a whole is resistant to collapsing in on itself (i.e. from collision with other heavy luggage). We packed the box with styrofoam and some shredded paper--which is actually surprisingly good packing material--and put old towers in and threw it around, dropped it, etc. The tower survived without any breaks.

Yep, a pelican case would also be quite a bit out of the range for our team's budget, but self-formed cardboard box would work great for me! Thanks for the idea

We've actually decided to use a large cooler now to transport our tower to MIT. Our original idea was to carry-on the cardboard box, but we realized it was too big for carry-on for the airplane. Now, we're using this cooler that can fit our tower and we're planning on filling it with paper shred, then wrapping tape around the cooler so it doesn't open during the flight.