Surplus field elements for public practice field?

[ToddF]

Triple Helix has begun efforts to make all the teams in our area more competitive. We have noticed that Virginia teams are under-represented at the national championships. We find this troubling, as it means that our state, and the Hampton Roads area is falling behind other areas of the country in producing the kind of kids who will enter the science and engineering fields, and bring future prosperity to our region and state. Last year we hosted an “FRC Summit”, a day of workshops presented by local FRC teams for other area teams, sharing their best practices, with the goal that we all grow together.

It has become apparent to us that in order for our team specifically, and other Hampton Roads teams in general, to become nationally competitive, a practice field is a must. 2363 has very limited opportunities to practice with our robots because we have no dedicated space at the school to do so. Recently, our team has succeeded in forging a relationship with the Virginia Air and Space Center (VASC). This relationship will allow Triple Helix, among other things, to set up a semi-permanent robotics exhibit featuring past years robots from our and other area teams, and also to set up a nearly full sized practice field. Currently, we have VASC management approval to set up the field during the fall quarter of the year. The field will be open to all area teams to do robot driving practice and run scrimmage matches. This activity would be open to the public to observe. We will use these sessions for driver practice, public demonstrations, team recruitment, and opportunities to just play with other area teams. Students who participate will be treated as museum volunteers, with logged volunteer hours and other benefits (free museum admission and IMAX movies). Needless to say, we are very excited.

Having secured a location for the practice facility, we are now moving on to consider options with regard to how we can get a field set up. Obviously, the most ideal option is to have a complete field replete with a Field Management System. Since having such is not the most realistic possibility in the world, we are trying to figure out just what we can do. Certainly, we should be able to drive robots around and interact with team built field elements at a minimum, but the possibility certainly exists that we could possibly do more than that. We have reached out to other area teams to see if we can collect any surplus team built field elements for use at the field, and asked for any other ideas.

Are there any teams with surplus field elements or carpet who would be willing to donate or loan these items for this field? Now that Championships are done, teams may be cleaning out things for the summer. We fear that faced with the prospect of storing large field elements, especially pyramids, things will get thrown away. We don't want something to end up in a dumpster when it is desperately needed for this field. Please let us know if you may have something we could use. We have all summer to work out logistics of how to get it here.

Also, consider this to be an open invitation to come visit the practice field, in Hampton, VA, this fall. We plan to be playing on the field, by ourselves or with other teams, every Saturday. The more teams that can come play, the more fun it will be for all of us, and the public, as well. It is our hope that we can get enough participation from other teams that the field will become a development center for FRC robotics, and a draw of visitors to VASC. If that is the case, we hope to persuade VASC to allow the field to remain through build season, as a resource for teams to test their 2014 robots.