Contact with NASA teams (254, 118, etc.). Urgent need!
 

Hi everyone,

The school I teach at and coach for has an opportunity that has arrived unexpectedly, and requires urgent attention, as there is only a brief window (early October). We may be receiving funding to create a large extension wing that will include manufacturing facilities and enough space to house a full-size, dedicated FRC field. We have been asked to provide, in moderate detail, the amount of space required, a sample floor plan, the types of equipment we wish to purchase, and the electrical and infrastructure requirements for the space. We want to base our ideas off of the spaces used by NASA teams, if possible. Could any of you put me in touch with someone who could give us a little guidance? This is very exciting, and while it's been part of our long-term goals and plans, we never expected that it would come up so quickly. I appreciate any and all help. Thanks in advance!!

Re: Contact with NASA teams (254, 118, etc.). Urgent need!
 

Feel free to contact me via email or PM.

Re: Contact with NASA teams (254, 118, etc.). Urgent need!
 

You might want to contact guys from 624 too. They have a fantastic new robotics center for Katy area teams including machine shop and full field. Check out CD threads relating to their effort.

Re: Contact with NASA teams (254, 118, etc.). Urgent need!
 

While we aren't a NASA team, our school did build a new STEM wing recently, just completed a year and a half ago. While it hosts a couple of classes, it was designed with the robotics team in mind. We have a half practice field area (doubles as a classroom, with all desks on wheels!), a shop area, a huge assembly area with tons of tables, a dedicated FLL room, a conference room with a kitchenette, and insanely tall ceilings. If you want more info, send me a PM!

Re: Contact with NASA teams (254, 118, etc.). Urgent need!
 

You might also want to look into the folks over on team 1717 and their recently built engineering center at their academy.

Re: Contact with NASA teams (254, 118, etc.). Urgent need!
 

Feel free to email me and I will help in any way i can.

Re: Contact with NASA teams (254, 118, etc.). Urgent need!
 

Thanks for the offers of help, everyone! I've sent out emails etc. Imedina, I couldn't get your email, so I PM'ed you.

Re: Contact with NASA teams (254, 118, etc.). Urgent need!
 

You lucky bastard and your new field..
You better use that thing every day :)

Re: Contact with NASA teams (254, 118, etc.). Urgent need!
 

Dang. You're lucky. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous. We don't even have room for a field. Unless we dug up our gym. Which could work I suppose.

Re: Contact with NASA teams (254, 118, etc.). Urgent need!
 

It's not a done deal yet, and assuming everything falls into place it'll still be the fall of 2015 at the earliest, so don't get too jealous yet.

FWIW, all we did was put together a single page, 5-year vision for serving the school and community, and send it out to three or four people in positions of influence in our school, district and community. I never figured on it being funded but they came back right away. Hope this might encourage some folks to seek funding for their FRC dreams too.

Re: Contact with NASA teams (254, 118, etc.). Urgent need!
 

Just having the very remote possibility of that happening for you are better chances than the Majority of FRC teams

Re: Contact with NASA teams (254, 118, etc.). Urgent need!
 

I don't know that your point is true.

He raises a great point, they ASKED for this. They REACHED out to others to see what was there.

Many teams (and people, in all aspects of life) complain that XYX isn't there for them, but at no point have they really TRIED to make it happen for themselves.

Re: Contact with NASA teams (254, 118, etc.). Urgent need!
 

I high school in our district was being mothballed, and we asked facilities about having access to just the gym as a practice facility for the 10 DCPS teams. We were told no, the entire building is getting shuttered and we can't have just the gym available for you.

A few weeks later they offered us the secondary gym at a elementary school elsewhere in the city, and we now have a full time practice field with an exterior door that each team has a key for. Until we made a proposal, they didn't know that we wanted a space like that.

You can't get what you don't ask or build the relationships for.

Wetzel

Re: Contact with NASA teams (254, 118, etc.). Urgent need!
 

It's hard to say. Every team is in a different place, and all of us have up and down years or decades. We had a long streak (our first eight years) where our entire budget was the entry fee, and we usually had to scrounge that up. We built most of one of our robots out of a used doghouse.

It does appear to me, though, that there may be room for optimism for many teams (or for STEM projects in general) based on a few factors, such as the boom in fracking.

I really hope I'm not coming across as a jerk. Right now we're building our robots using the school wood shop, and our actual build room is the attic which until this summer was wood shop dead storage. My good friend in the district lost her team entirely (and her job) when they shut her school down and moved her to another school, where's she's trying to start over almost from scratch in a large closet. We really want to create a place where every team in our district and area can benefit. Hopefully it pans out, and I also hope the best for all the teams. FRC is an amazing experience, at whatever level of funding.

Re: Contact with NASA teams (254, 118, etc.). Urgent need!
 

That's some incredibly good luck, if I was put in charge of such a project I'd do a minimum of 10 pages.

Re: Contact with NASA teams (254, 118, etc.). Urgent need!
 

I don't think it's a good idea to put down these guys' efforts. Sometimes very high quality effort can go a lot further than a high quantity of effort.

They had a great opportunity open up for them, and that is something to celebrate!

Re: Contact with NASA teams (254, 118, etc.). Urgent need!
 

A nice, succinct proposal can be much more effective than a long-winded, detail oriented proposal. Some people might just stop reading at 2 pages since most of the information would not relevant to their knowledge or interests. Remember that all they sent out was a feeler to gauge interest and now they have to write the actual proposal, which will be much longer based on the information they are gathering on CD.

Re: Contact with NASA teams (254, 118, etc.). Urgent need!
 

Correct.