Re: What's Your Ideal Robot Workspace
 

you guys are amazingly lucky. Our school sponsors us by allowing us use of the metal shop, but our total storage space amounts to a single 6x9 closet with 16 foot ceiling, which we stack to the very top

Re: What's Your Ideal Robot Workspace
 

One of the most important things I can think of is a carpeted area for at least half a practice field, ideally a full one. It's so easy not to thoroughly test your robot without the right space. We all do what we can with our space, but building is only part of the battle. Testing, breaking, and then rebuilding is incredibly important. We're trying to make space in our shop right now for half a field.

Re: What's Your Ideal Robot Workspace
 

That would be the ideal pit...

Re: What's Your Ideal Robot Workspace
 

Thanks for all of this great feedback. I've started a list in Google Docs. It's open to the public, please feel free to edit and contribute: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ao1PdzsjkT0EdGNsMW00MXFaeDBaZlMtelZfMFctT FE

Rich

Re: What's Your Ideal Robot Workspace
 

Our team currently has very little dedicated space. We can use the metals shop, and part of a fabrication area during build season, but those areas need to be cleaned up each day, and any robot parts or tool cannot be stored there. All of our tools, components, the robot itself, batteries, etc. need to get stored in a less than classroom size area each time we leave. Also, we are required to keep a pathway through the area clear for access to two other areas that need to be gotten to through our area. As you can imagine this makes the logistics of building a robot difficult.

If I could change one thing, it would be to have an assembly area where things could be left out, or at least left in one place during a build. If all the parts, tools, and sub assemblies need to be boxed up and stored in a different area, and the area cleaned up after each build session you can easily loose half of your time transporting and setting up parts and tools at the start and end of each build session. In fact parts can get lost or damaged during this process, and it does not do all the tools any good to get wheeled around through the rain twice a day.

If there is any way to have a secured build area where you can keep some partially assembled components out while working on them, that can be a great advantage. Also having the ability to store your tools relatively close to the assembly area can also save a huge amount of time and effort.

Re: What's Your Ideal Robot Workspace
 

Oh my, if only.
our team(2984) workscompletely out of the closet of our schol's ceramics room(which ironically, is designed to be a giant machine shop with a 25' ceiling, grounded work tbles, and mounting holes in the ground for a mill). it is 20' by 20' at the most, with an 8' drop ceiling. there is a stack of tables and a cabinet full of ceramic pots that we cant touch. also, the Cermaics dust gets Everywhere, including my beatiful new electronics layout:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: !
(we are attempting to convince incoming 9th graders that Cermaics is not fun at all and the teacher is mean

Re: What's Your Ideal Robot Workspace
 

Abandon Aerospace/Chemical plant :D

lots of fun memories there.

Re: What's Your Ideal Robot Workspace
 

We have half of the old auto shop. It is a lockable room about 30 feet square, with 10 foot ceilings and two small rooms (8 x 8) off the side we can use for storage. We also have access to several classrooms for 'clean' quiet work, plus the tech-ed classroom which has a small lathe, 2 band saws, a sander and a drill press, plus a dozen or so computer workstations.

The post by One4robots covers a lot of what I also feel is ideal.

In an ideal room, there would be spaces for heavy work, light work and clean work. There's not a lot of heavy work, so that space could be a little small, with machinery and some tooling storage. The light work is most of what we do, so plenty of heavy-duty horizontal work table, and a space that is easily cleaned. Tool storage, material storage, and work-in-progress storage, all lockable. The quiet area would be typical classroom setup, with tables instead of desks, plenty of computer connections, and a printer.

Actual square footage will depend on the anticipated size of the team, and whether the quiet areas can actually be other rooms not dedicated to the team - for example, if there was a robotics technology curriculum it could also be taught in there, with access to the other areas as needed by the teacher.

In the heavy area, at least one lathe and one CNC mill would be excellent. Add in a metal-cutting band saw, a drill press and a sander - all with dust extraction - and that would be wonderful.

Good luck!

Re: What's Your Ideal Robot Workspace
 

The cake is a lie.

Re: What's Your Ideal Robot Workspace
 

Does anyone have any tips to getting space for robotics? I have tried multiple times to get us more space but currently we have an old office with a drill press. Tips?

Re: What's Your Ideal Robot Workspace
 

Our team has had a different experience. We used to build in a large church basement, where we were allowed to leave virtually everything out during build season. It was great for the first couple of days, but soon everything was spread out so much that we couldn't find things. Sometimes things went missing or got broken from being left out.

A couple years ago, we moved to a new build space provided by our sponsor, but were required to clean up every day. That sounds like a pain, but the discipline has really benefited us. We built a storage cabinet for each subteam, 4x4x6' on wheels, hinged to open into two halves with easy access to all the storage totes and shelves inside. The robot itself is allowed to sit on its cart during construction. At the beginning of each build session, the students on each subteam roll their own cabinet to their work area, open it up, and get right to work. Cleanup at the end of each build session takes 15-20 minutes (could be faster if all students chipped in equally). Now we hardly ever lose tools or break assemblies (and the few instances were not related to cleanup).

Even if we got our own dedicated work space at the school, I would enforce the full cleanup at every build session. It has worked very well for our team.

Re: What's Your Ideal Robot Workspace
 

This:
http://waialuarobotics.com/2011-2012...acilities.html

except add taller ceilings (because of this year's game), and a full size field space (our largest open area is about 3/4 of the official game field).

Re: What's Your Ideal Robot Workspace
 

The Good thing is that your team is still together. My team has also struggled getting support from our school. Last year (our rookie year) we worked on campus, but this year the school decided to start wood shop to make frames for photography class and that left us with no working or storage place. For months we looked for a place and just 2 weeks before kick-off we found it! Today work on the basement of the Delta Masonic Temple. The place is big, we have a kitchen 2 restrooms and 24\7 access for free. We are still tied up to our school somehow, but we also became a 4H team. We have students from 7 different schools and i think that has helped us a LOT too.

My advice to your team is to stick together and to keep looking for opportunities. NETWORKING is the key. Every person you meet is an opportunity not only for your team, but for that person to become part of something amazing like FIRST. Your school may not be a great support...yet, but there's still tons of people out there that haven't heard the FIRST message yet. Go to your sponsors and to big companies to give demos! We didn't expect it, but this year we got about 6 new mentors just from doing that. The challenges we've faced have made us stronger as a team, and it can be that way for you guys too ;)

Karina Adame
Team Captain
Chairman's Award Lead

"Scientists study the world as it is; engineers create the world that has never been."

- Theodore Von Karman

Re: What's Your Ideal Robot Workspace
 

I totally agree!! your body can get kinda tired after working from 9am-7am the day before shipping day x) lol

Re: What's Your Ideal Robot Workspace
 

Wow... that's a lot of different rooms.