Where do you meet?
 

We were just notified that we are loosing our team home on 2/28. :ahh:

So, we are trying to brainstorm on where we can find a new home. The usual sponsor and school industrial arts areas won't work for us, so I thought I'd see what creative solutions other teams have come up when faced with similar situations.

Thanks for any information.
Kenton

Re: Where do you meet?
 

Our first year we were in one of the team's parents garage's. As he restores cars, it had a bunch of equipment we can use... but it did get a bit cold!

Our second year we got an engineering co-op in St. Paul to sponsor us with after-hours use of their shop. They hooked us up with the owner of their building, who let us use a huge unused room on the second floor pretty cheeply during the build season, and then gave us a large closet for the off season. third year we did that again, only this time it was an unused room on the third floor.

By the end of the season, we were too big to fit back in the closet, so the school took out a 3-year lease on the room we were in originally, and they had it remodeled to fit us. We've been there ever since.

Re: Where do you meet?
 

For most of our teams existence we have just built out of team members or mentors gargaes. This has worked because most of the important stuff ( welding for my team) we hand off to sponsors.

Re: Where do you meet?
 

We have a local team that just leased a space in a shopping mall - should work out well for them as they transition from a challenging location in a school to a nice 3,000 s.f. conditioned space. They can post more details. Be sure that you identify and prepare your needs well. Speak to commercial real-estate companies, local warehouses, your sponsors, parents and friends of the team. At least you didn't have to move during the build season, right?

Re: Where do you meet?
 

We were asked to leave our space last spring. We formed a committee of 3-4 mentors and our sole teacher sponsor in hunt for space. We made all of the parents and mentors aware of what was happening and asked them to contact anyone they knew.

We also formed our own non-profit LLC with the state and partnered up with our local Community Foundation to use their existing 501c3. They manage all of the tax filings, PO's, invoices, checks, etc. Using the LLC we are able to sign a lease and obtain insurance. Our school would not sign a lease, one of the main reasons we started our own organization

Re: Where do you meet?
 

I would imagine that having space in a mall would have great opportunities for community outreach. I would be interested to here more about this if they can use this space to an advantage.

Re: Where do you meet?
 

It really depends on what you need to do.

If you're just having a team meeting of a few people, this can be done in someone's house, a conference room, a restaurant on and off night, etc.

If you need to build/practice/debug a machine - then you'll want somewhere with a bit more open space, at which point I'd contact a sponsor. Our primary sponsor has more than enough open space for a half dozen FRC fields if you get them when they're not busy.

Re: Where do you meet?
 

Woah.

Our school gives us a small closet, but we make do. We have to bring our robot over to the library for some real practice, which is on the other side of campus, but we do it. They originally wanted to put us in a second story room that could only be accessed by a fleet of stairs. -.-

We are currently looking into a new area, but it's pretty tough to get anything local, and it's convenient for the mentors and students to be somewhere local.
We were thinking about working under our school, which was made in the '50s, in the bomb shelter :p, but that didn't turn out. Oh well! Closet sweet closet!

P.S: A bit of extra information, when we opened the doors to our closet Tuesday, we found a couch and a refrigerator. Nothing important, but just something I wanted to share. :)

Re: Where do you meet?
 

We meet regularly in the community room at the local public library for business, organizational and light building.

SHHHH!!!::rtm:: ::rtm:: ::ouch:: Our meetings after hours so we don't have to be quiet!

We've held workshops at the regional university research farm in their conference room. We've met at the local coffee shop. We've met several times at a leader's church where there is a huge family living/gymnasium area big enough for a practice field.

And we're planning to build in a wonderfully spacious shop (with heated floors!!!) that belongs to a local tractor repair/handyman.

Re: Where do you meet?
 

Ever since our team was created we have been working in the: Same. Small. Space. Aka our CAD classroom. Half of the room is filled with computers also so most of our space is the main aisle way separating the power tools from the computers.

I mention this only for the fact that space is space. If you can get a place to work it matters not the size. I wish you and your team luck in overcoming this problem. ;)

Re: Where do you meet?
 

Just be careful with putting carpets down!

We (1676) work in our school's engineering room and an old woodshop/garage that is half owned by us and half owned by the janitors. We are also able to set up between 1/4 to 1/3 of a practice field (depending on how much we decide to build that year) in our school's cafeteria, but we have to put it up and take it down every day, except for the weekends.

Re: Where do you meet?
 

When my team wins the lottery (should be any day now ;) ) we are gonna build a huge facility, with CNC machines, lathes, mill's, etc. Maybe hire some workers, hold an offseason-competition, you know...

Maybe thats what you could do. :)

Re: Where do you meet?
 

Two weeks after Championships, we lost our home, the School District having sold the warehouse which had been our 6th home since the team's founding (and 3rd home in a year). We spent the summer homeless; with machines, parts & robots scattered between donated storage space and mentor's basements (which absolutely hurt us at IRI; we had rookie drivers with no practice opportunity).

The team's students, parents and especially mentors fanned out and beat the local bush for any available space. Since September, we have been working very happily in an empty warehouse very graciously donated by a local company (Waterloo Gardens Inc.). The space is great, but also for sale so there is no sense of permanancy. We did set up a Tenancy Agreement with the sponsor, which defines thier expectations of us and also provides the team with 30 days notice before a move.

The team did incorporate, to protect team assets and also provide an entity to contract liability insurance. We are currently seeking 501(c)(3) status.

We also continue to work towards a more permanent home. This being our 7th home, our definition of "permanent" is two years. We've got some good potentials now, but it was a great deal of work getting to this point.

By the way, despite the loss of school district support and our semi-homelessness, the team has surprisingly thrived. We built two robots this year for the first time ever. We won the Philadelphia Regional as alliance captain (2nd seed/alliance) and also received the Rockwell Automation Innovation in Control Award at Philadelphia. We attended the Championship for the first time ever and participated in IRI (albeit totally unprepared). We won Duel on the Delaware last month and our 2nd robot/team was a Finalist at Ramp Riot last Saturday. It was a great year for us. Our best ever. We've been able to recruit a great group of new students (and a new mentor) for the 2012 season. Our training has been solid. We are ready to rock.

Our organization also operates (17) VEX teams and (6) FLL teams. These are full programs engaging well over 100 students.

So we are able to run a very competitive and active robotics program. Sustainability, alas, is a month-to-month issue for us and is dictacted by the space situation. This is okay today. Tomorrow could be different. We live like this.

Re: Where do you meet?
 

Two weeks after Championships, we lost our home, the School District having sold the warehouse which had been our 6th home since the team's founding (and 3rd home in a year). We spent the summer homeless; with machines, parts & robots scattered between donated storage space and mentor's basements (which absolutely hurt us at IRI; we had rookie drivers with no practice opportunity).

The team's students, parents and especially mentors fanned out and beat the local bush for any available space. Since September, we have been working very happily in an empty warehouse very graciously donated by a local company (Waterloo Gardens Inc.). The space is great, but also for sale so there is no sense of permanancy. We did set up a Tenancy Agreement with the sponsor, which defines thier expectations of us and also provides the team with 30 days notice before a move.

The team did incorporate, to protect team assets and also provide an entity to contract liability insurance. We are currently seeking 501(3)(c) status.

We also continue to work towards a more permanent home. This being our 7th home, our definition of "permanent" is two years. We've got some good potentials now, but it was a great deal of work getting to this point.

By the way, despite the loss of school district support and our semi-homelessness, the team has surprisingly thrived. We built two robots this year for the first time ever. We won the Philadelphia Regional as alliance captain (2nd seed/alliance) and also received the Rockwell Automation Innovation in Control Award at Philadelphia. We attended the Championship for the first time ever and participated in IRI (albeit totally unprepared). We won Duel on the Delaware last month and our 2nd robot/team was a Finalist at Ramp Riot last Saturday. It was a great year for us. Our best ever. We've been able to recruit a great group of new students (and a new mentor) for the 2012 season. Our training has been solid. We are ready to rock.

Our organization also operates (17) VEX teams and (6) FLL teams. These are full programs engaging well over 100 students.

So we are able to run a very competitive and active robotics program. Sustainability, alas, is a month-to-month issue for us and is dictacted by the space situation. This is okay today. Tomorrow could be different. We live like this.

Re: Where do you meet?
 

The Rochester City School District provides us with a workspace that we have to share with FOUR OTHER TEAMS. To be honest the combined roster of the four other teams might equal to the amount of members on my team (started around 63 at our first meeting and shrinking). We'll probably be around 40 to 50 by the time ship day comes around.
The REC (Rochester Engineering Center) was based on a idea from Detroit, Michigan as a robotics site to host several robotics teams. Fortunately the Rochester City School District is all in the on the project and while there have been several hiccups at least it's home and we're making the most of it.

Re: Where do you meet?
 

The Rochester City system sounds pretty nice, all-in-all.

Re: Where do you meet?
 

I guess that would be bag day now.

With regards to build space, we used to work in a room in an engineering building at a local university, until they discovered that the professor was using it as a storage room (half of it at least, the fact that we were using the other half didn't count I guess).

Since then we have been in our school's maintenance room. Basically, it is a thermos combined with a Faraday cage. The noise from the fans can make it hard to talk, depending on where people are standing, and the radio only works because somebody wrapped a wire around the antenna and put the other end through a hole drilled in a two-and-a-half foot pipe wrench , but there is a drill press and a place to put the robot.

Other benefits of this location are the fact more people seem to be aware of our existence and there are no issues with people getting to meetings (at least for team members who attend the school).

I hope you are able to find a more permanent home that works well for your needs.

Re: Where do you meet?
 

A bit more info on 1640's moving techniques:

Finding Space
We found our first non-school district building--smack in the middle of the 2008 build season--when a mentor spoke about our predicament at a town meeting. A local family offered us their stable for the duration of the season. This was actually a great location for us (not that we would've been picky).

So think about what kind of space you actually need: work room, storage, electricity, clean computer areas, access times, parking, restrooms. Remember you can bring your own heat and light if necessary. Some things (programming, CAD) can potentially we in separate places. Be as conservative as you like, but not unrealistic. Have a few different plans (best case, ok, lowest acceptable, etc). Write this up and advertise it. People may be surprised that they can help!

Here's our current writeup. This is the intra-team version; we cater it to each potential sponsor. This even applies to when you go to your own district. Most of our 6 locations came from the district, but they were pretty diverse.


Actually Moving
We've done this a lot now: upwards of 10 at least partial moves in 4 years. The first several were done solely in minivans. Now mentors have trucks and the team has a trailer, plus we get in-kind donations to move the really big stuff.
Tips:

1. Don't move things you don't need. This is a good spring cleaning opportunity. Try to keep an accurate inventory.
2. Keep what you move as assembled and organized as possible.
3. Label everything. Then label it again. Take pictures if you like.
4. Call in backup. Try to give yourself enough time, schedule it, and don't overload people. Other teams might even be willing to lend a hand.
5. If you're going into storage first, consider what needs the easiest access. Also remember what needs climate/rodent/etc control. Also consider access (loading dock, door width) to these areas. Generally, robots prefer walk-in finished basements to garages.
6. Also for storage, make a list of where everything is and send it to everyone. Keep it updated.
7. If you're maintaining your own space, remember to work things like heat, electric, cleaning supplies, etc into your budget.

Re: Where do you meet?
 

A few years ago we lost our build space (formally provided by a sponsor- we've yet to secure a build space at school) a few months before build season. The whole team was on the lookout for a new home and, thanks to one of our students, we ended up in the basement of a church in town.

It was fate- the church had recently been renovated and had extra space to fill, and some of the church staff had engineering experience and once they found out about FIRST, they were eager to lend their support. They told us we could make the basement our build space. Only problem was the basement was filled up with stuff. But they agreed to let us move our stuff in there if we cleaned their stuff out.

So we did. We took a day as a team and cleaned out their basement room, leaving us with enough room to store our stuff and set up a decent build space. It wasn't the best place for building robots, but we made it work and I will be eternally grateful to the church for taking us in.

We stayed in the church basement for two seasons. Fortunately our team then gained a new sponsor, who lets us build in their building.

I would just encourage anyone who finds themselves in this situation to think creatively and be flexible. You never know what might happen until you ask. Good luck!

Re: Where do you meet?
 

For the entirety of 134's existence we have been working out of a classroom and a small storage closet where the school's electrical panel is.

Re: Where do you meet?
 

Team 316 has enjoyed the generosity of Salem Community College for many years. They have provided us with a dedicated workshop for our projects and allow the Team use of any classrooms upon request, even allowing access when the College is not in session. Currently they are clearing an adjoining area that will double the size of our shop.

Re: Where do you meet?
 

The mall is extremely interested in having us there. They are in the midst of a re-development so many of the spaces are empty and we are hoping that we can attract more people there for them and us.

Re: Where do you meet?
 

Initially in 2006 we were building in the school, but quickly realized our assembled robot would not fit through the door. Our very gracious coach allowed us to move it to her home and their attached garage for 3 years until she retired. This worked out every well because we had the garage, a large meeting area(the living room), a very large kitchen and a office to work with.

When she retired we were both homeless and coachless. My parents and I opened up our home and external(heated) garage for the team my senior year. This worked out decently, we would have some team members working in the house and others in the garage. When I graduated they became homeless again because my dad kicked us out due to personal conflicts with a few people (both students and mentors).

Another member's family opened up their workshop to the team where we were housed for 2 years. This was our least favorite of all homes, although it worked out decently for build. There was a small wood burning stove to keep us warm(and send us home smelling like smoke). Our main issues was that there was no internet nor room for the business side of the program. That student graduated this past year so we became homeless again.

Due to the fact my brother is now a freshman we are now back at my house for hopefully the next 4 years. We finally achieved getting a robotics class created in our school so their has been talk of building us our own workshop to house the class and the team but that is many years off.