View Full Version : Any Teams in NJ want to Split the cost for a field, setup practices?!?
Hi everyone, hope the early parts of everyones build season are going smoothly!
I am a member of Team 303 Panther Robotics from Bridgewater New Jersey, currently we are asking if there are any teams within the local area who would want to split the costs for a full field and setup some practices and scrims. We have the required space to build the field at our shop (it is tight but it fits) and two teams have said they are interested: Team 102 from Somerville the Gearheads, and Team 1279 Coldfusion from Immaculata.
If you are interested or would like more information please respond to this thread and/or email me at njlutkenhouse@mac.com
By doing this teams can save a lot of money, still get a full field's experience for all that driving practice thats needed, and have a strong network of local teams to work with and build relations with. Happy Building to all FIRST goers :)
Akash Rastogi
08-01-2009, 23:18
Hi everyone, hope the early parts of everyones build season are going smoothly!
I am a member of Team 303 Panther Robotics from Bridgewater New Jersey, currently we are asking if there are any teams within the local area who would want to split the costs for a full field and setup some practices and scrims. We have the required space to build the field at our shop (it is tight but it fits) and two teams have said they are interested: Team 102 from Somerville the Gearheads, and Team 1279 Coldfusion from Immaculata.
If you are interested or would like more information please respond to this thread and/or email me at njlutkenhouse@mac.com
By doing this teams can save a lot of money, still get a full field's experience for all that driving practice thats needed, and have a strong network of local teams to work with and build relations with. Happy Building to all FIRST goers :)
Interested and working on it, Nick.
neoshaakti
08-01-2009, 23:32
yeah we're interested too
rcoren22
08-01-2009, 23:37
We are currently attempting to have a warehouse space donated to the cause.
That being said... we are interested in getting a practice space together with some local teams.
We were originally going to try to connect with north jersey teams to keep the travel time down as I am sure that teams are going to want to use the facilities as often as possible.
Maybe we should try to get a couple of practice fields???
Lowfategg
08-01-2009, 23:40
We might be interested.
Neoshaakti: I'll get in contact with your team sometime tomorrow, if there is an email or phone number I should use let me know.
rcoren22: yea, perhaps if we had multiple field locations we could arrange for some kind of larger practice competition. if you cannot fund a full field of your own or would rather pitch in to the field we're getting going just let me know, we havn't had much contact with 223 in a few years :)
Lowfategg: ahh 2753, how goes things? Hope your doing great!!! I'll be sure to hold a spot for you guys, just give me the word :)
rcoren22
08-01-2009, 23:48
We are still interested and would love to work with some of the other teams in NJ....
it is just a long commute for us coming from Wanaque NJ, so I have to look at the logistics.
yea I just figured that may be a little to long to ask you to travel :/ thats like a good 40 minute drive.
Danny McC
09-01-2009, 00:41
Dun dun dun. Hey guys. Its just me. See how everyones doing. So yeah I am pretty sure like almost 100% we are going to have a whole field just letting everyone know in case you didnt see the old post. And if we get our whole field built we are more than willing to share it with other teams who would like practice and get the feel for a whole field. So further information will be given by Saturday. If you guys think it will be easier to build your own because of the whole distnace thing than you know its better for you. I was just letting you know all the option might be on the table.
Danny, thanks for the offer! unfortunately you guys are over an hour's drive south of us here in south jersey, and even further for some of the northern teams. Hopefully we can get a practice in or something but considering the traffic going south on most weekdays it'd be near impossible for us.
Danny McC
09-01-2009, 01:04
Danny, thanks for the offer! unfortunately you guys are over an hour's drive south of us here in south jersey, and even further for some of the northern teams. Hopefully we can get a practice in or something but considering the traffic going south on most weekdays it'd be near impossible for us.
Yeahh i knew you guys were kinda up there. But I was just extending the offer to everyone in New Jersey.
BandChick
09-01-2009, 02:26
I'll bring it up with our lead mentor tomorrow, or at latest, Monday. =)
Lowfategg
09-01-2009, 02:28
Hey wondering, would you be building this at PTM?
galewind
09-01-2009, 05:48
We're going to buy some of the home depot FRP to build like 1/4 field, and we'll be likely building two trailers. If teams are going to build a practice field together, it'd be good to buy a consistent type of FRP to mimic the field a little better. My concern, though, is that teams won't have enough orbit balls to put together a full practice field unless you have at least 25 teams. That's not a criticism of the effort to put a field together, though.
yea, we'll be building it at PTM unless there is another team with a better facility near by, and as for the game pieces our plan was to get as similar as possible material to whats used in the current balls and just cut out strips and book socks to make our own lol.
neoshaakti
09-01-2009, 09:14
Project management wise, the host team should be " in charge" of reproducing the surface of the field at their facility. They should then delegate different elements of the field to teams based on the drawings FIRST has provided us. Teams that aren't building element can make orbit balls. We're gonna need a ton of orbit balls, so maybe orbit balls = entrance . You have to bring x orbit balls to enter.
If we were to build a field, how often can a team "onboard" visit to practice?
Also, maybe we should look into the longer sheets of regolath and just send a check to the team instead of bringing our own 4 by 8s
let me know what u think
nHouse, just PM me, Im practically the main contact of my team
thanks
Yea Neo, thats basically along the lines of what we were planning on doing. As of now, we're assuming the field will be at our place (Bridgewater, Somerset County) but if anyone has a better location for local teams let me know.
As for managing the field setup and orginization if it were at our place we would most likely (i have to check with the mentors) just buy the required tiles at the best option possible and get checks from teams who are participating when they come. The only thing we would need more of right now would be carpeting. As for the Orbit balls go, each team would hopefully be able to construct an adequate number of balls and bring them as well as a trailer but that would be setup on a per team basis, maybe some teams just cant do it in which case the slack could be picked up.
Whatever teams decide to participate would be allowed to come and practice whenever if it is at our place. We would just want a heads up a day in advance or so because the field would be literally right next to our build shop. We're at the shop Monday/Tuesday/Thursday from 3:30pm - 7:00pm and can stay later if needed and on Wednesdays/Fridays we're there from 3:30 - 9:00pm. Saturdays are 9:00am - 1:00pm or so. Fridays and Saturdays would be the best days to have Multi-Team practices and scrims involving 3 or more robots because the field can be fully setup without interfering with our sponsors workers at all. Lastly, we would send out an email to each team contact with a waiver attached for our sponsors facilities that each person would have to sign before coming over. We're pretty flexible and I think it would work out great....
Hopefully that answers anyones questions about the scenario if it were to happen at our place.
popnbrown
09-01-2009, 11:09
Like everyone else said there's a lot of benefits to a practice field where teams can scrim and practice with the full field. Cougar Robotics will probably be building about a 1/4 to a 1/2 field at our school, just to get the feel for the floor, but depending on how our current schedule for build goes, and if it goes on schedule which would give us about a week or two of practice, I would be more than happy to pitch in. I'll bring the idea to my team and see what they think.
Thanks for the offer,
Sravan
GillSt.Bernards
09-01-2009, 12:16
Is it possible to still see about that. I go to a private school in New Jersey It is in somerset county in Peapack Gladstone but I personally live in Branchburg and our mentors live in Somerville and Branchburg so we would be able to get to Bridewter easily
GillSt.Bernards: of course, just let me know as soon as you can :) I'll get the details on how much it'll cost per team once i figure out how many teams were getting in a few days. :)
And incase it sounded like time was running out by all means if any teams out there want to join in let me know, theres plenty of time :P
neoshaakti
09-01-2009, 17:58
Would it be possible to send out an email through the NY/NJ email blast?
Update:
For the teams who have already responded and given the me "ok" thank you, we have 3 teams currently interested participating other then ourselves (The teams currently are: 102, 303, 1279, and 2458)
If you have not indicated one way or the other whether you can or cant please let me know as soon as you can, preferably by monday so we can talk with our sponsor and hopefully get the space to build it. Monday is not a final deadline so if you cannot get an answer by then thats more then ok!!
neoshaakti
10-01-2009, 13:01
Team 2554 is definitely interested and will be able to commit to this project.
Great Neoshaakti, that brings us to 5 teams, 102, 303, 1279, 2458, and 2554. I will get more information to those teams as soon as I get some :)
Hi All,
Sorry, but I need to cool things down a bit before people get too excited about 303 definitely hosting this enterprise. The students just approached the adult leadership on this over the weekend, and there are a number of logistical issues that would have to be worked out before this could become reality. We also have to determine whether this fits within our budget.
The space directly adjacent the shop is too close to delicate equipment and product to be a practical and safe place to build a field. It would also be impossible to locate the field there without disrupting our host’s production operation unless it were set up Friday night and at least half of it disappeared by Monday morning.
There is an attached building, however, that may fit the bill. A lot depends on the company’s production schedule as a bulky product is manufactured, staged for shipping, and then shipped out. At any time the floor could be full or empty. If there is a big order going into production soon, all bets could be off.
We will discuss this with the company’s production manager early this week, and if it looks possible with their schedule we will open a dialog with the owner. Our host has been very gracious, but our relationship is still young, and it is inappropriate to ASSUME anything.
As far as when the field would be accessible, I think it would have to be limited to the last weekend, or possibly last two weekends of build. Having a lot of extra cars and people around during the company’s production time would be disruptive. Tractor-trailers can come and go at any time and need to have room to maneuver.
IF we can have the field set up for a week, we might be able to schedule one or two teams at a time during the week for drive practice, autonomous code development, etc.
Finally, an appropriate waiver would have to be developed, and we would need to limit the number of people per team to the drive teams plus a few extras, and at least one adult.
The bottom line is that while this is an idea that would be good for many teams and is worth pursuing, we need to slow down and take things one step at a time. As Nick said, if there are any other teams in the area that may have the space available, we should be looking at those options as well.
Thanks for the interest, and GO TEAMS! :)
MrA
Lead Mentor, Team 303
Right MrA, so as I've informed the teams we will hopefully be able to get back to you guys by late monday or tuesday on the status :)
We have been given the go ahead for the early stages of planning this field, I will privately contact the teams that are involved and give you guys the details. If anyone else is still interested please contact me ASAP! Thank you for everyone who has responded and hopefully everyone will be given some kind of access to a full field so that Jersey will be amazing this year :)
Akash Rastogi
13-01-2009, 21:43
We have been given the go ahead for the early stages of planning this field, I will privately contact the teams that are involved and give you guys the details. If anyone else is still interested please contact me ASAP! Thank you for everyone who has responded and hopefully everyone will be given some kind of access to a full field so that Jersey will be amazing this year :)
We have a trailer built if you guys want to use it on practice days like after we're done testing or if we can bring it along. Right now we have 6" custom UHMW wheels on it but will replace those with the AM slicks once they ship.
*ATTENTION* Help needed!
One of the teams originally planning to help build the field with us has just informed me today that they are unable to help for financial reasons and without a 5th team our project is in jeopardy.
If there are any teams in the area that are willing to jump in on this project last minute it would be greatly appreciated. At this point the remaining teams would be looking at a price jump from with 5 teams to 4 that we arnt sure is worth it or doable, we need either for a local lumberyard (which i am working on) to donate the wood needed or for another team to replace the missing team.
If there is any interest please let me know ASAP by responding to this thread but even better emailing me @ njlutkenhouse@mac.com. I have detailed documents explaining the cost and our plan is to have the field built by next weekend so that we can have 3v3 scrimmages for the 4 or 5 days before ship and get a feel for the field and style of game prior to regionals.
The field could potentially be used for post season competitions as a fundraiser but all that is just speculative ideas at this point, so if there is anyone interested or who can help out let me know!
Thanks :)
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