Re: Where do YOU practice driving?
 

We use our school cafeteria. A couple of years back, our team built wooden walls that connect together with bolts and wingnuts so we could take it apart, move the walls, and store them in our storage closet. however, if we are doing some simple tests, or if we get denied access to our cafeteria, we just use the hallway outside of our engineering classroom.

Re: Where do YOU practice driving?
 

Local teams set up a field at the RPI Tech Park that can be used. It's pretty awesome, actually.

Re: Where do YOU practice driving?
 

At 696 we traditionally have used the cafeteria/auditorium (auditeria they call it) or gymnasium over weekends. Unfortunately we do not have a place to really store a full field's worth of carpet. We now have a 20x20 space that we could leave set up, but it has an 8.5 foot ceiling.

On 968, we had an unused space in a local shopping mall to leave a full field set up year round. It made a big difference in competitive performance.

Re: Where do YOU practice driving?
 

971 goes to NASA AMES and practices with 254 on 254's field set up in their lab. It is a great deal. I highly recommend it, especially since you are in the area. 254 has been very generous with us in the past, and we are very appreciative.

Re: Where do YOU practice driving?
 

Our team was fortunate enough to be able to use the old library at our school for building and practice. Before it was a library it was a cafeteria, so the old kitchen holds our build room. Outside of the build room we have space for a full sized practice field as well as an FTC field.

Re: Where do YOU practice driving?
 

Buzz uses the school cafeteria where a whole field can be put together. Length is fitting, width may not be to spec.

BAE NH is our primary testing ground.

Re: Where do YOU practice driving?
 

In early years 781 practiced in the gym of a public school in town that had recently been closed. After that was sold, they used the school gym, but had to setup and take down every time they used it. Recently, the school has made it very difficult for us to book out the gym, so last year we set out to find a different space to practice in. I approached the owner of a gym that had recently closed in town, and they agreed to let us use the building, as it was sitting empty. We had room to set up a little over 1/2 of a field. We moved the carpet in on the Sunday after kickoff, and didn't move out until after the championship. They are planning to have the building torn down and turned into condos so it is unlikely we will be able to use it again. As of last June, we were working on getting use of old garage bays with room to set up a full, if not very close to a full field.

For quick testing, we used the portable classroom that is our build site, but for programming and full on driver practice, we used the practice field.

Re: Where do YOU practice driving?
 

We practiced everywhere, I had students driving out base chassis in our shop and a little once we had our arm mounted. Then we moved to the cafeteria for a little while but we had to move the tables and chairs and set up and then put everything back every night. Once we realised that tile wasn't anything like carpet we took over our library every night to do some real testing.

This year our school's Alternative Learning Classroom moved locations and we got their old room for building and testing. It connects to the shop and is 40'x38' with 18' ceilings. We're pretty excited to be able to leave a half finished project out on a table to complete the next day without having to repack and unpack everything every day.

Re: Where do YOU practice driving?
 

We have a practice field at 30 Hart which is the Rochester Engineering Center.
We share the space with two other teams (73 and 3838. Soon to be four when 1450 and 3842 move in).
The practice field is the length of an official FIRST field but only half the width.
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...g?t=1297721775

Re: Where do YOU practice driving?
 

While this is an idea, and 254 is a very generous team, I don't think it would be very convenient for us the Poofs if we came and went to their labs when we need practice. Plus, by the time we would drive there, set up, and get the robot ready, we wouldn't have much time to practice. We are thankful enough they let teams use their field in the build season.

Re: Where do YOU practice driving?
 

Our school board gives us space in a closed school-turned-resource center. We have plenty of space, the room allows for a full sized field and storage for tools, robots, etc. It's in the middle of nowhere, about a 25 minute drive for us. It's perfect and allows for ultimate secrecy. ;)

-Nick

Re: Where do YOU practice driving?
 

Our school has a fairly large area (maybe 15-20' by 50') where we keep two driver stations set up throughout build season. We have to move some tables off to the side, but we put them back when we're done and our school is generous enough to not mind skid marks on the carpet.

Re: Where do YOU practice driving?
 

the great outdoors

Re: Where do YOU practice driving?
 

For Team 1676, we build in our school's engineering room and also our old auto-shop, but we practice driving downstairs in our school's cafeteria. We have enough carpet to create a full-length field, but only half the width. Normally, however, we only used one carpet, which we placed all of the correct tape markings on. We usually build between half to two-thirds of the field elements, due to space and time constraints. This year, will built one rack (a 3x3 set of pegs), one human player station, one full minibot tower (which we modified to show if we hit it with enough pressure or not), and a second minibot tower base for placement purposes. We were able to reuse a driver station which we built last year. We have to take down and set-up the field everyday, but are able to store all of the field elements in a connecting stairwell and both carpets in a connecting teacher's cafeteria.

Re: Where do YOU practice driving?
 

Really? Must be hard to practice if it rains. :rolleyes: