[robocup-nao] Nao's in the carry-on luggage

Thu Jun 4 22:46:55 EDT 2009

Hi

Last year I taped up my Nao into the 'sitting Buddha' position and then
wrapped it in one layer of bubble wrap and carried it in my hands from our
lab the the competition. Going there and back it was 4 flights, two European
airports and twice in China. I had to pass through many security gates in
each airport and put it through the Xray machine each time. In almost every
encounter with security I found they were amazed to see sych a thing more
than anything else. Anytime one passes through these gates there is a
technician operating the Xray machine that should have some sense of
electronics and when he gives the nod to say it is indeed a robot upon Xray
inspection, everyone is happy and smiling. The encounter usually amounts to:
"What's that?",  "A robot",  "What does it do?", "It plays football", "..?..
As if..",  "No seriously, it plays football :)".  The only single opposition
I faced was when returning from China, some security girl at one of the
final security layers told me I could not get on a plane with it, it has to
go in the cargo hold. I told her it was a 10,000 euro prototype robot used
to play football in the robot Olympics and that there is no chance in hell
it is leaving my sight. She insisted with a Cheshire smile and all the
confidence you would expect from China's security that these are the rules
and I will have to put it underneath the plane. I made the point that she is
simply making that up, they have no such rule, I am not turning it over to
their "throwers" and that she is going to have to get her boss. She turned a
little green when I mentioned her superior and make another quite weak
attempt to maintain her position and I just had to give her one more "you
can't just make up rules on the spot, go and get your boss".   The boss man
quickly appeared, assessed the situation, got the "yes it is nothing more
than a robot" from the Xray machine jockey and that was it. He ushered me on
without a hint of reservation.

I'd also like to add not a single person requested the Carnet I needlessly
had with me.
I really think the simple wow factor of a retail quality humanoid robot
dilutes any encounter with 'the man'.

My advice is, if anyone starts trying to make waves for you about any issue,
just keep saying Robot Olympics until their rolling out the red carpet.

Alex

On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 9:17 AM, Stefan Czarnetzki <
Stefan.Czarnetzki at tu-dortmund.de> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> just to add my opinion: We always transported our Aibos and also our
> Naos as carry-on luggage because we had too much bad experience with
> checked luggage that was thrown or handled badly. In my personal
> opinion, checked luggage will be handled even worse if the suitcase is
> new or if you put a "fragile" sign on it.  ;-)
> We never had problems getting our robots on the plane, but most of the
> time we had to unpack to show them to the staff. For that we had
> batteries with us, but rarely had to turn the robots on.
>
> To carry the Naos we used something like gym bags where the Aldebaran
> transport foam fits in without having to cut it. The bags were cheap,
> light-weight and easy to handle.
>
> Cheers,
> Stefan
>
>
> Michael Quinlan wrote:
> > Hi,
> >    We were once advised to at least have one battery with the robots
> > to prove that they are intact robots and turn on. So in you carry on
> > the robots take at least one battery with you.
> >
> > Michael
> >
> > On 03/06/2009, at 9:33 PM, Bernhard Hengst <BERNHARDH at CSE.UNSW.EDU.AU>
> > wrote:
> >
> >
> >> Yes, I recall that story. We sought advice before taking the AIBOs
> >> as carry
> >> on luggage. Qantas officials told me that they were familiar with
> >> the AIBOs
> >> and carrying them on board would not be a problem, but that we
> >> should remove
> >> the batteries in case they accidentally start up, scare the
> >> passengers, and
> >> cause a panic.
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >> Bernhard
> >>
> >> Bernhard Hengst
> >> ARC Centre of Excellence for Autonomous Systems
> >> School of Computer Science and Engineering, Room 401E, Ext: 56993
> >> University of New South Wales  Tele: +61 2 9385-6993, (0418) 493-279
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>> From: "Brad Hall at CSE, UNSW" <bradh at cse.unsw.edu.au>
> >>> Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 12:15:46 +1000
> >>> To: Elad Alon <elad.alon at gmail.com>
> >>> Cc: Eran Polosetski <eranpolo at gmail.com>, <robocup-nao at cc.gatech.edu>
> >>> Subject: Re: [robocup-nao] Nao's in the carry-on luggage
> >>>
> >>> The only battery incident I've had personally was in China (Xi'an),
> >>> where I had to remove the battery from my laptop, but I was then
> >>> allowed to put it back in the same suitcase as the laptop.
> >>>
> >>> I remember also a story that once we had to remove the battery from a
> >>> AIBO as they were worried that it might turn itself on mid-flight.
> >>>
> >>> I think they are just worried about it shorting or starting to move
> >>> during the flight.
> >>>
> >>> Cheers,
> >>> Brad
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> At 4:39 AM +0300 4/6/09, Elad Alon wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Thank you very much for the very swift answer. One more question,
> >>>> though (from me, at any rate. Eran might have some more). You
> >>>> mentioned removing the battery, to avoid any issues. Where would you
> >>>> put it? Take it with the carry-on luggage? Or did you mean just take
> >>>> it out of the robot?
> >>>>
> >>>> Thanks,
> >>>> Elad Alon
> >>>>
> >>>> On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 04:21, Brad Hall at CSE, UNSW
> >>>> <<mailto:bradh at cse.unsw.edu.au>bradh at cse.unsw.edu.au> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> UNSW puts the Naos into the checked luggage.  We have suitcases and
> >>>> then cut the foam that the Naos arrived in to suit the suitcase.
> >>>> This actually seems safer than having them squashed into the
> >>>> over-head luggage areas.
> >>>>
> >>>> China had some strict conditions for the robots, so we were held up
> >>>> at customs until the RoboCup representative arrived.  As a
> >>>> precaution
> >>>> when we left Australia, we got our Customs to stamp a list of
> >>>> everything we were taking out so that when we returned we could
> >>>> prove
> >>>> that the robots were not new imports, but from memory there was no
> >>>> issue.
> >>>>
> >>>> I would recommend removing the battery to avoid any issues.
> >>>>
> >>>> Cheers,
> >>>> Brad
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> At 4:06 AM +0300 4/6/09, Eran Polosetski wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Hi Guys,
> >>>>>
> >>>>> What kind of problems (if any) did you face when carrying Nao's in
> >>>>> your carry-on luggage on board a flight? (not in your checked
> >>>>> luggage...)
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I heard rumors that it is better to separate the battery from the
> >>>>> robot. So did you experience any security / luggage-weight / other
> >>>>> problems?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Thanks!
> >>>>> Eran
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>> robocup-nao mailing list
> >>>>> <mailto:robocup-nao at cc.gatech.edu>robocup-nao at cc.gatech.edu
> >>>>> <https://lists.cc.gatech.edu/mailman/listinfo/robocup-nao>
> https://lists.cc.g
> >>>>> atech.edu/mailman/listinfo/robocup-nao
> >>>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> ______________________________________________________
> >>>> Brad Hall
> >>>> Development Manager, UNSW COMPUTING
> >>>> The School of Computer Science and Engineering
> >>>>
> >>>> University of New South Wales
> >>>> Celebrating 60 years of extraordinary achievement
> >>>> <http://www.computing.unsw.edu.au/whyunsw.php>
> http://www.computing.unsw.edu.a
> >>>> u/whyunsw.php
> >>>>
> >>>> 2052 NSW
> >>>> Australia
> >>>> ABN  57 195 873 179
> >>>> <http://www.computing.unsw.edu.au>www.computing.unsw.edu.au
> >>>> Building K17   Room 105B
> >>>> Phone 02 9385 6625 Fax 02 9385 6104
> >>>> Disclaimer:
> >>>> <<http://www.eng.unsw.edu.au/emaildis.htm>
> http://www.eng.unsw.edu.au/emaildis
> >>>> .htm>
> >>>> ______________________________________________________
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> robocup-nao mailing list
> >>>> <mailto:robocup-nao at cc.gatech.edu>robocup-nao at cc.gatech.edu
> >>>> <https://lists.cc.gatech.edu/mailman/listinfo/robocup-nao>
> https://lists.cc.ga
> >>>> tech.edu/mailman/listinfo/robocup-nao
> >>>>
> >>> --
> >>> ______________________________________________________
> >>> Brad Hall
> >>> Development Manager, UNSW COMPUTING
> >>> The School of Computer Science and Engineering
> >>>
> >>> University of New South Wales
> >>> Celebrating 60 years of extraordinary achievement
> >>> http://www.computing.unsw.edu.au/whyunsw.php
> >>>
> >>> 2052 NSW
> >>> Australia
> >>> ABN  57 195 873 179
> >>> www.computing.unsw.edu.au
> >>> Building K17   Room 105B
> >>> Phone 02 9385 6625 Fax 02 9385 6104
> >>> Disclaimer: <http://www.eng.unsw.edu.au/emaildis.htm>
> >>> ______________________________________________________
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> robocup-nao mailing list
> >>> robocup-nao at cc.gatech.edu
> >>> https://lists.cc.gatech.edu/mailman/listinfo/robocup-nao
> >>>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> robocup-nao mailing list
> >> robocup-nao at cc.gatech.edu
> >> https://lists.cc.gatech.edu/mailman/listinfo/robocup-nao
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > robocup-nao mailing list
> > robocup-nao at cc.gatech.edu
> > https://lists.cc.gatech.edu/mailman/listinfo/robocup-nao
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
> robocup-nao mailing list
> robocup-nao at cc.gatech.edu
> https://lists.cc.gatech.edu/mailman/listinfo/robocup-nao
>

-- 
Alexander Buckley

58 Rail Park
Maynooth
Kildare
Ireland
albuckley at gmail.com
albuckley at hotmail.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.cc.gatech.edu/pipermail/robocup-nao/attachments/20090605/8784db23/attachment.html 