Re: How many of you build your own field?
 

We plan on/have built the center piece, one regular goal, one vision tetra, and three regular tetra's. ;)

Re: How many of you build your own field?
 

This was for the 2001 competition. Although I was not there, I think I can assume that in that game, the centerpiece was more important that it is in the 2005 game, when it is just another way to score.

My team plans on making a vision tetra of each color, a normal tetra of each color, an automatic loading station, a normal goal and a mock up of the center goal using various pieces (come on, who wants to pay $125 for the center goal?).

Re: How many of you build your own field?
 

We just build the center pieces, however Dana's Tech Fusion gives us access to the field they build for final testing. Which of course is extremely nice of them.

Re: How many of you build your own field?
 

So Far we have built one of the small goals and 2 tetras, we are waiting on some clover pieces to build the center goal and a few more tetras. thats all we need.

Re: How many of you build your own field?
 

We are lucky to have some extra space now and have built a full size field the last few years. (plywood is a good substitute for most field parts) Previous to that, we built to the size we occupied.

Re: How many of you build your own field?
 

We build only the game parts that are important to us and try to dismaly mock up the rest with saying " you see that thingy hanging from the ceiling... thats what you have to shoot over... better start practicing... oh and aim for the rubbish bin, just pretend its 5 foot hight...."

Re: How many of you build your own field?
 

We only have the space to build half the field, so we have five of the regular tetrahedron goals, plus the center piece, and lots of scoring tetras. It works perfectly for brainstorming, prototyping, and practicing.

Re: How many of you build your own field?
 

My team makes a half playing field. But this only just started this year for 1 reason, (1) We didnt have the space! But I feel as though building a field makes the team way effective.

Re: How many of you build your own field?
 

we dont have the space to hold a field-- in the past we just built certain elements and often times we really didnt' need them-- this year before the game came out we thought to only build the parts we truly need--so first comes the strategy we want then build the parts we need

last year though our sister team 179 did have pretty much a whole field so we went to visit them to practice once--thanks guys again for that

Re: How many of you build your own field?
 

We've only had the space and funding to build a full field once in my three years on 818; we did that in 2003, and most likely because the other GM teams offered materials and aid in building it in exchange for sharing use of it.

We were on our own last year and will be again this season, so we build a smaller and cheaper mockup of it. Last year, we just built the central platform and one of the moveable goals; this year, I think we're going to build a few goals and some tetras to go with it.

To the best of my knowledge, we've NEVER built player stations before. Only the field elements that the robot will be interacting with.

Having the money and time to have a full field would be nice, but it's a luxury we can do without. :)

Re: How many of you build your own field?
 

WE built a whole feild in 2003, which was very nice. But last year, we only built half of the center strctuer and two mobile goals, but that really all you need. I guess ity would be nice to use a who.le feild, but i think thats kinda what practice matches are for.

Re: How many of you build your own field?
 

We only build the critical field elements and have some scrap rug for a sample field surface. The problem is we don't have the room for an entire field. Last year we set up the bar and platform in the gym to test our shimmy mechanism, but every night we had to move it all back into storage. Setting up and breaking down the field elements takes up a bit of our meeting time.

Re: How many of you build your own field?
 

We don't have room for a whole, or even half feild, since we work out of a computer lab. We do out best, however, to either get or make a replica of whatever the robot need to handle, like the tetras this year and some goals.

Re: How many of you build your own field?
 

Thats sounds like US! ! !

we have built 4 tetras
center goal
2 side goals

Re: How many of you build your own field?
 

Yeah, we generally lay out the dimensions of the field, so we know how much space we have to work in and to get a feel for it. We build at least one of each of the elements (i.e. this year: auto loader, center goal, side goal, vision tetra) and then a bunch of the small tetras. This way we can check out all of the functions and issues etc. that we need to address. And if we are going to have a scrimmage this year with a few local teams, then we will build some more components for the field.

A tip to those teams that can't find enough PVC end caps or other parts: order your parts early. This seems to work out less problematically than going out on the day of/after kickoff and trying to find all of the necessary things.

Good luck to all teams out there, regardless of whether you have a full field, or very little to work with!