[Jon Stratis]

As it turns out, our team is in exactly the same situation - the school is looking to build a new STEM center on campus that will house the robotics team, the physics class, and the Engineering class. It will be really nice to finally be on campus. Our first year was in a garage, our second and third years were renting empty areas (only during the build season) in a building downtown (there was a machine shop we could use on the first floor of the building), and now we're in the third year of the school's lease on a rather nice area in that same building (it contains a shop/assembly area, a separate room for programming/PR/group meetings, and a separate, unfinished room for practice).

We're working with them to create a space divided up as follows:
- a typical classroom space, possibly with tables along the walls for computers
- an assembly space with standing height tables - some dedicated for robotics, some for the classwork.
- two shop areas, one for metal, one for wood
- A practice area (which might just be an open carpeted extension of the assembly area) equal to about 1/2 of a field, with a high ceiling (at least 12', hopefully more)

For a few years now we've maintained a "wish list" of equipment that we've been gradually obtaining as funds become available. We're using our current equipment and the wish list to help plan out the size requirements of the shop areas. I believe we're aiming at somewhere around 3000 sq ft for the entire thing.