Ever have a nightmare where you have a critically important demo in a faraway place and the equipment ends up damaged and unusable? Well, I've just lived it. Twice! In one week!
The 1st demo was supposed to be early last week in The Netherlands. We went to check the luggage, including the carefully packed robot in a custom crate, and the robot weighed in at 123 pounds. This was a surprise to us since when we received this, the packing slip said 100 pounds even. The airline wouldn't take it at any price. We even offered that one of us would stay back and put the robot in his seat. No dice. So we had to take apart the robot and put it in different suitcases. A wheel here, a power supply there, etc. We got the main crate down to around 100 pounds and they took it. Unfortunately, the removal of the wheels allowed it to slide around in its container and it arrived badly damaged.
We did, fortunately, have a video. The customer was dismayed and skeptical but decided to give us the benefit of the doubt and rescheduled for April.
So then we had our spare robot shipped to Cleveland for the second demo (and supposedly the making of a video). It arrived in good shape except that one of the hubs came loose on one of the axles. The Cleveland client had welding capabilities so we set up to weld the axles and hubs. Unfortunately, we accidentally dropped the robot on it's camera boards in the process and knocked them hopelessly out of alignment. Scratch that demo.
Man that sucked!
Well, I'm home now, and my blogging pace should pick up to the old level now. I'll also be pushing towards GG IV.
I hope you all have happy holidays! Happy belated birthday Benj!
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